


All Atrocities Are From My Heart

by living_catastrophe



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Smut, M/M, Obsession, One-Sided Attraction, mixed-signals, pl_swiftwater, sniper is so confused, spy expresses his feelings in a very unhealthy way, spy is kind of a psychopath, until it's not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14584446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/living_catastrophe/pseuds/living_catastrophe
Summary: Amidst the violence and redundancy of his job, BLU Spy feels something for the enemy Sniper.Infatuation, probably.Love? Certainly not.-------rating and tags will update as this progresses





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first attempt at writing a multi-chapter fic, and also the first fic i'm posting here. i really need to get the reasonably slow beginning thing down, i always want to jump right to the action, which is why i have 8,000+ words worth of scenes planned for the future. ahaha i'm an idiot :)  
> my update schedule will probably be very erratic, just a heads-up

This was getting boring, BLU Spy lamented as his hands wrapped around the RED Sniper's throat. His eyes were widened with shock that spread across his face, and he futilely grabbed at his attacker's wrists.

Spy hated boring routine, which was probably why he hadn't stabbed the Sniper. Repetitious matches got awfully dull, incredibly tedious, and he couldn't help but deviate from routine, quick kills to keep things interesting. The frantic pulse beneath his fingers encouraged him to squeeze harder, much to the Sniper's dismay – much to Spy's delight. That panicked look suited him, Spy decided. He wanted to put it there over and over and over again.

RED was, in fact, not anymore skilled than BLU, and Spy hoped the Sniper knew that as he asphyxiated under him. Perhaps a little too quickly. Oh well. He had plenty of other opportunities to kill the bushman, more slowly, maybe. It wasn't unprofessional – he would still be killing the RED Sniper, and everything could be undone with a little trip through respawn.

Spy left the Sniper's ephemeral corpse – it'd be picked up by respawn shortly – and looked across Swiftwater for his next impending target, the RED Medic. It was a pretty landscape if one overlooked all the carnage; he took in the gently rolling green topography (now spattered with blood and bits of viscera), the barely discernible murmur of the river among the harsh cacophony of battle.

He located the Medic, hiding behind the Heavy like a coward. Having his severed head kept alive in the RED medi-bay's fridge had incurred a deep hatred of the doctor and a healthy respect of spilt medi gun fluid.

It was a simple enough task – one he had done countless times. Cloaking as he descended the stairs of the deteriorating wooden building, and then uncloaking behind the Medic, the sound inaudible over the Heavy's minigun, which was currently mowing down BLU's cart-pushing endeavors.

A backstab later and Spy was escaping the scene; the normally oblivious Heavy had noticed very quickly when he wasn't being healed anymore, and sent expensive bullets spraying the area around him. Spy frowned from behind a structure at the lost opportunity for a double stab, and his displeasure increased when his team's Sniper fired a bullet through the Russian's skull. He could have handled that.

The irritation was fleeting; he had better things to do than sulk over lost kills. They were close to capping the final point, after all. The enemy Engineer had built a level three sentry above the last point, a seemingly last ditch effort to stop the BLU's massacre in their destruction of the chemical plant and maintain RED's nearly weeklong winning streak. The sentry's gun swiveled on its tripod legs, beeping every few seconds as it scanned the battlefield for enemies. The RED Engineer toiled between it and the dispenser. Spy made to destroy it – he was halfway there, electro-sapper in hand, when his team's Demoman charged in front of him. Spy stumbled backward at the suddenness of it. Demo shot a few pills at the sentry while yelling a drunken battlecry before it directed its missiles at him and obliterated the Scot into carmine chunks of meat.

"Imbecile," Spy muttered. He couldn't fathom why the man thought it was a good idea to go into battle drunk, but he broke even often enough that no one stopped him.

Spy held off, allowing his invis watch to recharge so he could go after the Engineer again, this time without interruption. The Texan was completely unaware of his presence, and once the sentry turned away from him, Spy stabbed the Engineer. The man let out a startled yell and collapsed onto the ground. Spy whipped out his sapper and stuck it on the sentry, which short circuited and sparked, then exploded. This, of course, was enough noise to alert the remaining REDs, so Spy cloaked and ran, letting the rest of his team take over for this part. The RED Pyro blasted the place with flame, nearly scorching the back of Spy's suit as he fled.

Now that the sentry was down, BLU made quick work of the dispenser and stormed the cart. RED shot at them from the high ground – the Pyro even jumped down to try and stop them. It was all a chaotic mess of bullets and yelling, and at some point a shovel was thrown so high it landed outside the pit near Spy's foot. He was not going down there, he'd surely die some unpleasant way, but he managed to stab the RED Demoman, who practically backed into him while shooting down at Spy's teammates.

It was Soldier and Scout that pushed the cart the final distance, Soldier not only sending just the bomb but also himself plummeting into the pit where it detonated at the exterior of RED's base, knocking askew barrels filled with biohazard. One of the patriot's dismembered arms was flung into the air from the force of the explosion, landing in a bloody, mutilated mess nearby. Spy scowled at the flecks of blood spattered on his suit.

. . .

One of the first things Sniper had learned since his employment at RED was that death was a transient inconvenience – the respawn system would whisk your body away back to base a few moments after you died, and everything would start over again. But even where getting blown to pieces and burnt alive were all commonplace, that last death was just... awful.

It probably had to do with the intimacy of it, the intent to hurt and the pleasure taken in it. For this reason (and many more), Sniper hated the enemy Spy, along with all of his cruel, unnerving mannerisms and cowardly backstabbing.

Drawn out deaths weren't Sniper's forte, (especially ones at the hands of the BLU Spy, faced with that grey, remorseless gaze) he preferred a clean, efficacious headshot. He was a bloody professional; the Spy was a sadist. (That was the second thing he'd learned.)

The two didn't mix well.

Sniper had respawned just a few minutes before the BLUs pushed the bomb cart into the capture point, it's explosion resounded over the bases and reverberated through the floor.

The Administrator's contemptuous voice boomed over the loudspeakers. "You failed!"

His weapons were taken to resupply without him; humiliation round fatigue settled into his bones, rendering him defenseless. He could hear the BLUs going on their victorious murder spree, killing as many REDs they could find before the round ended and they were brought back to their base.

Thunder rolled overhead, and Sniper was grateful it'd held off for so long. Fighting in the rain was difficult and annoying, the ground got slick and muddy, and clothing stuck to skin uncomfortably. It ruined everyone's day, though usually ended in RED's victory since the BLU team's efforts would turn lousy and unenthusiastic. Sniper was also glad it was Friday, because fighting after a storm was almost just as bad as fighting during one. Outside it would be soggy and, due to being higher in latitude, chilly. Cold and wet were one of his least favorite things. Fortunately, there'd be time during the weekend for the ground to dry.

The round didn't last much longer, and he was soon teleported back inside RED's base alive, as no one had discovered him halfheartedly hiding against a wall. It was always an odd feeling, it left his body tingling from the unnatural movement.

When RED lost, most of them went off to do their own things for a while, maybe with a few grumbled complaints, but that was about it. There'd always be other battles, other inevitable loses. But Scout seemed to think RED was the inarguable color of victory, and whenever they lost he would blame their failure on something else; the wind, sprained ankles, BLUs fighting dirty.

"If I hadn't strained my calf we woulda won." (No, they wouldn't have.)

Sniper sighed, not wanting to listen to this again. He lounged on one of the chairs in the TV room, pulling his akubra over his eyes in hope that it would discourage anyone from disturbing him.

"Aye, Snipes, can ya serve baseballs for me? I wanna work on my swing."

No such luck.

"Scout, it's raining," Sniper mumbled. Why couldn't the little pest just bugger off for once? He might've been more inclined to spend time with him if he wasn't such a nuisance, maybe even felt bad for how they disregarded him at times if he didn't deserve it.

"Ya can throw 'em inside."

"Nein, abzolutely not," interjected Medic, who had overheard Scout's loud suggestion. He was always loud, wasn't he?

"Who do you think you are – my dad? I can do whatever I want, I'm a grown freakin' man," Scout retorted as he left the room.

Medic groaned and, with a dismissive wave of his hand, retreated to his medi-bay.

A few moments later, Sniper heard knocking from the other room – Scout's baseball, he assumed. He let the steady sound accompanied by the thrum of rain on the roof lull him to sleep, he was just on the edge of consciousness-

_Crash._

"Gott verdammt, Scout!"


	2. Chapter 2

During the weekend ceasefires they were subjected to Soldier's rants, mostly focusing on the sabotaging REDs–their pusillanimous Medic, their too efficient Sniper. (The enemy Medic wasn't really that cowardly, Soldier just had something negative to say about everyone.) He'd go off about the enemy's possible communistic motives, that the real reason they were trying to poison their bottled, 100 percent American water was so their forces would be weakened by the economic plummet and vulnerable to attack. He didn't seem to realize how little their water company impacted the US, and each unprovoked tirade involved excessive use of the word "maggot" and absurd patriotism.

A faint yell of "Boink!" could be heard every so often from various rooms, sometimes accompanied by Pyro's muffled laughter and claps.

Their Scout could be exceedingly messy, flipping his cans of Bonk and spilling them around the base, leaving droplets of liquid gleaming a radioactive green that honestly looked like it belonged in one of RED's biohazard barrels and not his stomach.

The rest of the team were calmer, more sensible–excluding their perpetually drunk demolitions expert. Demo periodically managed to blow something up, either accidentally or on purpose–it didn't really matter which because both would still send those nearby through respawn.

Because of these things, Spy made himself scarce. He avoided unnecessary interaction with his team, only forced to when they were bottling water. (Which they should probably wear gloves for, it violated some health regulation, for sure.) But there wasn't much to do on base, and going outside wasn't very entertaining either; Spy was often stuck inside, attempting to read while the team caused unnecessary commotions.

Soldier and Demo were watching something on the television, but he couldn't tell what due to their raucous shouting and arguing; he assumed it was some sport by the way they were riled up. Demo was drunk, evidently. His words slurred and he waved a bottle of Scrumpy in the air as he yelled at the TV and Soldier. Pyro and Scout were wrestling on the floor in front of the table together, laughing, rolling around, and overall acting immaturely for hired mercenaries.

"What tha' bloody hell was that cripe?" the Scot complained, gesturing with both hands at the TV. Spy observed as his careless movements sloshed amber alcohol onto the already nasty carpet. "He's a piece ah- He's tha' reason we're losin' 1 to 4!"

"YOUR TEAM IS LOSING BECAUSE THEY'RE A BUNCH OF COMMIES!" Soldier bellowed, fingers curling into fists.

Demo squinted at him in confusion. "They're not communists ya bleedin' idiot!"

"I KNOW A COMMIE MAGGOT WHEN I SEE ONE, YOU SKIRT TWIRLING DRUNK!"

Spy exhaled in exasperation, reoccurring agruements like this got old. "Gentlemen–" he said it in a mocking way, as they were anything but, "–keep it down."

"SHUT IT, FRENCHIE."

Spy pinched the bridge of his nose at the response. He tried to drown out his teammates' stupidity. They probably didn't even like those teams before now and only picked one to root for because the other had chosen the opposite. There was a brief moment of silence, until something else caused Soldier's anger to flare.

"SCOUT, get the FUCK out of the way!"

Spy looked up from his book again to see that Scout had tumbled in front of the television, blocking a portion of it from the two overly excited mens' views. His hat was missing, normally covered brown hair mussed up, and his cheeks were flushed an exerted shade of pink.

"Yeh, we're tryin' ta watch the bloody game here!" Demo agreed, for once.

"Alright, alright, jeeze, no need ta get ya kilt in a twist," the bostonian responded, raising both his hands up in mock surrender and scooting out of the way.

Demo looked like he had something to retort with, but couldn't find the effort in his drunken state. He sat back, took a swig of Scrumpy, and burped.

Footsteps faded into earshot, not that anyone else noticed, and Spy tensed, eyes trained on the doorway. Engineer and Medic appeared from around the corner. The shorter looked slightly worried.

"Hey boys, it's time ya'll helped us out over here," Engie said.

Soldier instantly leapt to his feet, apparently eager to help. "Yes, sir!"

Pyro, as usual, got up without complaint, outstretching a hand for Scout to help the boy to his feet. Scout gave a hesitant smile but took the offer. He followed the skipping pyromaniac over to Engineer.

Sniper chose this time to enter the room, eating a bowl of steaming macaroni. It was probably the first thing he'd had to eat all day–besides coffee–judging by the way he was scarfing the food down. He looked up, making embarrassed eye contact with the team. Spy rolled his eyes, put his book down, and walked to where the rest of them had gathered.

They were about to get going when Engineer turned around and headed back into the main room. He clicked off the television and whatever sports game that had been playing on it.

"Ay!"

"You too, Demo."

When they got to the water processing part of the base, it was a wreck. Half full vials crowded tables, random bits of machinery were scattered everywhere, and scribbled on sheets of paper stuck out stark white or blue against the metals. Spy wasn't a neat freak, but this amount of clutter seemed a bit over the top. And was that a box of _dynamite_ in the corner?

"Sorry 'bout the mess, didn't have anywhere to put things that were in the way," Engineer explained. "The processor is down 'til I get the chemicals outta the water, so we're gonna have to manually bottle again."

Scout groaned.

Engineer briefed them on how they'd been trying to synthesize something that would neutralize the chemicals RED was contaminating their water with, while still keeping it safe for consumption. He'd analyzed samples from each vat to see which ones were poisoned, which was most of them, unfortunately. Spy restrained his annoyance; this water company was ridiculous, he didn't understand why BLU would even go through all this effort for such meager profit. Nevertheless, he joined in on the work, not having much of a choice. He fell into a rhythm; turn tap on, fill bottle, turn tap off, pass it down the conveyer belt, repeat. It was too simple–Spy barely had to think about his actions and that's what made it so detestable. His thoughts wandered, eventually finding their way back to the RED Sniper, the beautiful fear that'd been on his face. He smirked to himself; the Sniper wouldn't be happy to see him tomorrow.

"What'cha smilin' about?" It was Scout.

His smile changed to an impassive line, not because he had something to hide, but because Scout always pried. "Nothing."

"Yeah, sure." Scout added under his breath, "Damn spies..."

The majority of the day was wasted on bottling water, as well as the next. On Monday, he woke up to Soldier going down the hallway pounding his fist on each of their doors at 5:00 while blowing forcefully into his bugle like his goal was to deafen them. It was what the man did every work day, something that used to happen on the weekends too until the team had chastised him for it. But sleeping past 10:00 was deemed unacceptable–even without work–and anyone who did was at risk of being dragged out of bed.

They had breakfast, which took a bit longer than usual due to it being Scout's turn to cook and him burning scrambled eggs the first time around. The smoke alarm ended up going off, and a lingering smell of charred eggs permeated the base. By the time breakfast (which had pieces of burnt eggs mixed in since Scout hadn't bothered cleaning the pan) had been properly prepared and consumed it was nearly six o'clock, and they had less than ten minutes before the battle started. Everyone–with the exception of Soldier, Pyro, and Scout–was grumbling about fighting too soon after eating and how they weren't ready yet. Medic was particularly inconvenienced because he'd spent the morning organizing his hopelessly disarranged papers and was still in his pajamas; his unbrushed hair stuck out in funny clumps.

Spy grabbed his revolver from his closet. He kept his weapons in his room instead of the messy racks in resupply; everything was too easily knocked over and out in the open there. But that didn't seem to bother half the team, who haphazardly flung their belongings into their compartments once a match was over. Spy slipped the revolver into an inner pocket of his suit jacket. His hand habitually brushed over the concealed butterfly knife, absent-mindedly checking just to make sure it was there, even though he always kept it on him.

He followed the rush of teammates into respawn, avoiding the rusting grate in the center of the room. Spy hadn't witnessed it failing, but its creaks and complaints underfoot were enough to make him wary. He didn't feel like falling to a grisly death before even stepping out onto the battlegrounds.

A loud voice called out, "I'm going to saw through your bones!"

Spy looked over to see that the RED Medic was the first to arrive at BLU's gates; he slashed his übersaw through the air with a grin, taunting at them from outside the respawn room. The rest of the REDs weren't far behind.

_"Mission begins in 30 seconds."_

"I'm gonna paint the ground red with your commie blood!" Soldier yelled.

The RED Soldier, of course, had to respond, "You're a disgrace to the uniform!"

A shouting competition about who was more patriotic followed that would soon be decided by whoever blew the other up first upon the match's beginning (which commenced in ten seconds). Spy didn't pay much attention, it was the same altercation every battle.

The Administrator counted down over the speakers, _"5... 4... 3... 2... 1."_

Spy cloaked and stepped away from the initial chaos of rockets and bullets, waiting for the fighting to move away before exiting respawn from one of the side gates. This time it was the RED Soldier who'd gotten the first rocket in, apparent from scattered bits of his BLU counterpart littering the main exit. They oozed thickly and slicked the green grass a contrasting red. It would take ten minutes for Soldier to return, ten minutes he could've spent defending the cart instead of getting in pointless, lethal skirmishes with the enemy Soldier.

Spy crossed the large log over the river. The water was higher than usual due to the recent downpour; it flowed along steadily. The RED Medic had übercharged the Heavy, and BLU retaliated by charging Pyro, who used their temporary invincibility to airblast the duo away from the rest of the team. It provoked the Medic to curse and rave in German, absolutely furious that his charge had been wasted. Pyro giggled at him. The Heavy roared and whirred his minigun to life, sending a barrage of bullets after Pyro who circled him to avoid them. Spy ducked behind the fence to avoid being shot.

Pyro didn't manage to kill the Heavy, however, and the Medic helped fend them off back to resupply by slicing at them with his übersaw. The Heavy was going to be problematic, without Soldier's assistance the man would effortlessly slaughter most capping attempts. Spy needed to take him out. He quietly approached the two REDs; they had let their guard down with the immediate threat of Pyro gone and the Medic was extinguishing the last flames. Once he was close enough, Spy decloaked, stabbed the Heavy, and cloaked again, heading for cover. The Medic whipped out his crossbow, but Spy was already out of sight. He watched the worried Medic move around and fire at random spots, one shot missing Spy by a foot.

Eventually, the doctor gave up and went to heal his own team's Pyro currently taking damage from Demo. Their battle moved into the Cave Raiders mine, safely away from Spy and the bomb cart. It wasn't moving anymore. Where was Scout?

"Bonk!"

The two scouts were dueling near the river, yelling out battlecries and swinging at each other with their bats.

"Boink!"

"Bonk!"

Scout could handle that by himself, if he shot at the boy's counterpart it'd only result in Scout indignantly claiming he didn't need help. Spy didn't ponder it any longer and started towards the cart, coming face to face with his team's pyromaniac. Pyro cocked their head at him, mumbled something unintelligible, and raised their backburner. Spy cringed at the puff of flame sent his way, squeezing his eyes shut even though he knew it couldn't hurt him. It was a knee-jerk reaction from being burnt to a crisp by the other Pyro so often. They were a maniac–both were. Spy's skin tingled as it passed through him, at what could've been pain. Pyro seemed satisfied that he wasn't an enemy and skipped off, humming beneath the gas mask. They made Spy uneasy.

A rocket went off close by. He caught a glimpse of the RED Soldier trying to rip the spine out of Scout's legless corpse and briskly walked in the other direction. Perhaps he should have helped Scout, he might've had time to spot the Soldier if he hadn't been occupied.

Spy looked for another target. He didn't like being in the center of battle, where his location could be revealed by taking damage in crossfire or an enemy unknowingly bumping into him. He much preferred picking off stray REDs on the outskirts.

A few yards away, Heavy was clearing the cart, steadily moving it forward and firing at any enemy that came near. He declared himself "credit to team," and Spy supposed he was, but he was also an easy target. Standing in the open like that and causing RED inconveniences typically led to headshots. Predictably, the RED Sniper placed a well-aimed bullet in the front of his head. The Russian man crumpled to the ground beside the bomb cart.

Which reminded him, he should probably give the Sniper a little visit. Spy located him in the window of the Shifty's Quick Shot building. It was a common place to find him while fighting at the first check point. It was a good sniping spot, but an obvious one. Spy disliked the building's high visibility, how a section of the stairs were in plain sight of anyone in the vicinity. He went around back, careful to tread lightly on the aged wooden planks. They were missing a few steps, crooked and in need of replacement. When he'd gotten past the unconcealed part of the stairs he decloaked, looking up at where the Sniper was standing to see if he'd heard it. The marksman gave no indication he'd heard him, he continued looking through the scope of his rifle.

Spy wondered how much the Sniper noticed through his wandering scope during their battles–the RED Medic's bloodthirsty grin just before he jabbed someone with his übersaw, the almost too long–too _playful_ –skirmishes the RED Spy instigated with Scout, or maybe Soldier and the RED Demoman's mending friendship.

If he did, he still failed to notice what was right behind him. Spy crept closer, raising his knife.

He must not have been quiet enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, sorry this took so long and for how boring it started off. i have a dilemma of needing to pace the story so events happen in a realistic timeframe, but i hate writing filler/team-bonding because it doesn't feel interesting enough, hence why halfway through this chapter i got bored and needed it to be eventful, you can probably tell where.


	3. Chapter 3

The Sniper jabbed him in the ribs with the butt of his rifle. Spy doubled over in pain, cursing in french and backing away from the Sniper. The RED grabbed his kukri, advancing on him.

The right corner of his lip twitched up. "Not too sneaky today, are you?" he taunted. "'Been waitin' for ya to show up."

"Come on, bushman, I don't have all day," Spy huffed. He had a burning dislike of being caught before a backstab, especially when someone rubbed it in like the Sniper was. Inwardly, he berated himself for not being more cautious.

"Oh no, you're gonna pay for that stunt you pulled last battle," the RED Sniper growled, brandishing his knife. Light glinted off an illuminated section of the steel.

Spy's eyes narrowed. Oh really?

The Sniper lunged forward and swung his kukri down where Spy would've been a moment ago if he hadn't dodged to the side. He took advantage of the man's now exposed flank, darting in and slashing his balisong over the soft, vulnerable area. Its sharp blade cut through skin like butter; Spy took superlative care of his weapons. The Sniper cursed and stopped to assess the damage, which was all the time Spy needed to slam him against the wall and bring the butterfly knife to his neck. His enemy let out a grunt at the impact and Spy grinned; the fight was over, he'd slit the Sniper's throat and they'd be done here. To his surprise, the RED grabbed his wrist and twisted before he could slice into anything important. It _hurt_. Spy yelped and dropped his knife, it went skittering across the floor when the Sniper kicked it. Alarmed to be without his favorite weapon, he reached for his pistol, but the marksman was a second faster. Spy had to scramble out of the way, nearly tripping, in order to avoid the full swing of the man's knife. The blade caught his arm and Spy yelled out. Adrenaline electrified his nerves in reaction, his body felt slightly numb from the rush. Anger pushed him to charge the Sniper. Spy pulled his fist back to deliver a hard punch to the sharpshooter's jaw as he knocked him to the ground.

Spy's control of the situation was short-lived, the Sniper grabbed his sides and flipped him onto his back. The action caused the kukri's handle to push into his ribs uncomfortably, hard enough to bruise. The Sniper leered down at him with teeth bared in a grimace. A tremor of fear flitted across Spy's face, and his hands scrabbled against the wooden floor in a frantic effort to push himself up and away from his enemy.

He was too late.

The RED Sniper plunged his kukri into Spy's chest. There was a sickening crack as the blade sunk past his sternum and then his back, hitting the floorboards under him with a deft thunk. Spy gave a gurgled gasp then went limp, the familiar feeling of respawn pulling him back to the resupply room.

. . .

Sniper looked down at the BLU Spy's body. It served him right. He turned away, still breathing heavily from the exertion, and leaned his bloodied kukri against the windowsill. He was unsure what triggered the Spy's moments of gratuitous inhumanity, but certainly that death had gotten the message across that Sniper wouldn't tolerate being played with like a bored cat toyed with a mouse. The Spy wasn't easily deterred though, he'd be back, most likely.

He saw the BLU Medic in the Cave Raiders' entranceway jumping around behind the Demoman, trying to avoid backstabs and headshots with his rapid movements. Sometimes he wouldn't bother when enemies were trying to evade him, but there was a particular pattern to the doctor's motions. If he aimed just there and withheld the shot for a heartbeat...

_Now._

The gunshot rang out, red trail dissipating after the bullet. The BLU doctor fell to the ground. Sniper ducked out of the Demoman's line of sight, because he'd be looking around for him after seeing his Medic's brains blown out. Having grenades launched towards him wasn't his favorite cause of waking up in respawn.

No indication that he'd been seen presented itself. Sniper went back to his position in the window to see Soldier rocket jump after the BLU Pyro. The two disappeared out of his sights.

Minutes went by of nothing, the fight had moved away from him, but he knew they'd be back for the payload. They had to be, of course, it was the battle's objective. Sniper was patient, he could wait. Moving would put him in danger he didn't need to be in when the first check point was still controlled by RED. A projection of their logo floated and spun leisurely above it.

The bomb cart started moving backwards and the BLU Scout ran into view, weaving left and right at random whims. Sniper wouldn't be able to get a good shot on him. The Scout made a beeline for the cart, circling it clockwise and then counterclockwise. His motions served to make him a difficult target.

The Scout called for assistance, "Li'l help pushin' the cart?"

Sniper focused on where the runner had come from and saw everyone else was quick to follow him. He picked off the BLU Engineer who was shooting at Spy, then reassessed the battlefield for another opportunity. The fight was back to the check point now, relatively close to his perch.

A stray bullet embedded itself in his left shoulder. Sniper nearly dropped his rifle out of the window, it clattered to the floor by his feet. He grit his teeth at the pain, a sound of discomfort escaping his lips. "Bloody hell..." Sniper retreated from the window and the platform at the building's side to avoid any other crossfire. The floorboards were hazardous and not nailed down there, some gaps were wide enough for his foot to fall through and shifted when bumped. Carefully, he sat down on one of the more stable spots.

He could call for Medic; the german was still alive, he'd seen him running beside the creek, healing Scout who'd lost fingers. "Help! Medic!"

"Medic! _Medic_! Medic!" the BLU Spy sneered, uncloaking beside him.

Sniper's eyes flashed up, amber meeting cruel silver in a clash of fire and ice. He hadn't heard the Spy this time. A revolver was held in his right hand. The bullet hadn't been a stray then, and he was probably here for revenge. Ah, piss.

The Spy flipped his butterfly knife into his hand and lunged for him. Sniper was taken aback with surprise, he almost didn't turn away in time; the knife swiped through the air centimeters from his face. He fumbled with his belt and his fingers closed around the handle of his kukri, he waved it through the air in a bid to make the Spy back off, but he retaliated by cutting deep into the back of Sniper's arm. He kicked out blindly, trying to get the BLU away from him. His foot harmlessly knocked over the empty bucket in the center of the room. It clattered onto its side. Every pulse of blood traveling through his body made the slash throb, and blood pushed out of the red wound.

Starting to feel desperate, Sniper shifted the knife from his right hand to his left. Simply moving his left arm caused excruciating pain to shoot from his shoulder and down his forearm. The bullet was still lodged deep in his shoulder, there was no feasible way of getting it out unless Medic showed up, and he was beginning to think the man wasn't, possibly too caught up with healing others in closer proximity.

That moment of distraction was enough for the BLU Spy to dash behind him. Sniper expected a knife in his spine. The Spy kicked him. Lava-hot agony scorched through his left shoulder as the pointed heel of the Spy's shoe slammed into the bullet wound. It was purposeful, Sniper knew it was. His hands flailed for purchase on the sliding wooden planks and then he fell; his vision blurred as he twisted and turned frantically, still trying to grab anything that'd save him from hitting the ground. He landed with a thump on his back, air forced itself out of his chest at the impact.

Sniper lay on the compacted dirt of the building's first floor, breath knocked out of his lungs. It took seven terrifying seconds for him to regain the ability to breathe, and he sucked in air painfully quickly, panting to restore a normal amount of oxygen in his lungs.

He heard the Spy's footsteps before he decloaked in Sniper's peripheral vision, and–after a too long pause–he looked over at the masked man.

Something passed across the Spy's visage. He blinked. Glaring at him again, he drew his revolver and aimed at Sniper's head. Sniper braced himself for the shot's inevitable discharge from its chamber.

The bullet fired.

. . .

Conveniency had made him shoot the Sniper. It would've taken turning the man over and dealing with his (futile) struggling to stab him.

It was the truth. He'd prove it by going up there again and shoving his knife into the Sniper's back when he respawned. Spy wasn't the patient type, he liked to get things done fast and wrapped up in a neat little bow for himself and a devastating mess for his enemies. But he could wait ten minutes, there were other things he was capable of doing in that time.

When heads started popping, Spy knew the Sniper was back. He wasn't in the same perch though, BLU had pushed the cart past the first checkpoint during his time in respawn and it'd forced him to relocate–which wasn't a bad thing, where he was shooting now was far more secure than Shifty's Quick Shot. (He hadn't meant for the Sniper to fall through the floor, but it'd worked out in his favor.) The best sniping spot was near a window, that was always a constant even though Spy disliked the chance of being shot through it while going for a backstab, but the room was big enough that he could go in the back corner and not be seen from outside.

He pulled out his disguise kit after surveying the battle, looking through possible REDs he could assume the appearance of. The Pyro wasn't around, perhaps in respawn, so he disguised as them. Still not sure he was safe, Spy scrutinized his surroundings. The grass blew in a vernal breeze; there wasn't much cover in this open area of the battlefield for anyone to hide. He reasoned they would've attacked by now, most of the RED mercenaries weren't prone to waiting.

Spy ran for the building, slowing his pace once he was inside to keep his footsteps from sounding. He wouldn't let the Sniper hear him, he'd kill the man and-

Something sank into his back. Spy recognized the knife just as he died.

Spy was seething when he appeared in the respawn room. How humiliating; the RED Spy had backstabbed him. That was _his_ job, _he_ was supposed to stab people, not get stabbed, and his counterpart had snuck up behind him and slipped a knife between his shoulder blades. Spy was enraged, he wanted revenge, but he knew better than to fuck with the RED Spy.

BLU wasn't winning the battle today, the cart was rolling backwards again–Spy didn't know for how long–and everyone was caught up in a fight, prevented from pushing it. He cloaked and ran for the cart, knowing as soon as he decloaked and stopped its reversal all RED's attention would be on him. Stopping the payload would be enough, he didn't need to stick around and get killed a third time.

A rocket was fired his direction when the cart screeched to a halt. Spy jumped out of the way, getting hit with bits of debris that had lost their velocity. Heavy mowed down the Soldier with his minigun before he could shoot another rocket, and Spy slipped into their midst, invisible to the enemy. He slid up behind the Engineer, decloaked, and stabbed him, resulting in a narrow escape for Spy and increased paranoia for RED when they lost him; they checked behind themselves frequently. But even at that disadvantage, RED still prevented BLU from reaching the bomb cart and emerged victorious.

The Administrator disapprovingly announced BLU's loss, _"You've failed!"_

BLU's weapons were teleported back to resupply, and the REDs' weapons glowed with guaranteed critical hits. Defenseless, Spy ran for cover. It was almost custom; the losing team would flee and the winners would give chase and gun them down. Everyone knew that's how it went because every time it was the same. Spy wasn't going to survive, like most of his team he was at the center of the battle.

Out of all the enemies around him, it was a single shot to the head that ended Spy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i changed the p.o.v too many times in this, sorry!

Sniper peered out the window, searching for enemies standing still a little too long, events from a few days prior still fresh in his head. The recollection causes his lip to involuntarily twitch in annoyance. _Bloody BLU wanker._

He could see the Spy now, smoking a cigarette where he thought he was out of sight between a boulder and a wooden support beam. He stood upright, back straight and shoulders squared, grey smoke floating past his parted lips and dissipating into the air. Despite his rigid stance, Sniper knew the BLU Spy was shorter than his RED counterpart by a couple inches. (They're not exactly the same, even with their employers' painstaking attempts at creating equal teams.) Sniper wondered if his straight posture was simply to make him look taller.

It was easy to kill the Spy. Sniper scoped in and pulled the trigger, splattering the man's brains onto the rock. For a brief moment, he wondered if maybe he shouldn't have done that, if it'd just draw the Spy's attention to him quicker. Sniper didn't want that. The more distance between him and spies the better.

. . .

The Sniper had killed him, again.

It may've been an invitation, the Sniper might've intended to gain his interest. Or it could've just been another meaningless headshot, another red tally on a sheet of paper. Spy chose to go find him anyway. Really, what else did he have to do? It was the same thing each battle–kill and be killed.

He took a drag from his cigarette before stubbing it out against the wall; he'd learned a while ago that they were a dead giveaway.

Spy jogged out of respawn, cloaking as he neared the enemy. He saw where the Sniper was now, all he had to do was get there unnoticed. The building was large, but it had a small entranceway, with metal stairs leading up to one of the rooms the Sniper was shooting from. Spy made his way up carefully, not wanting to step too hard and alert the marksman. When he reached the top he could see the man sitting on a crate he'd brought there what seemed like forever ago and looking down the scope of his rifle with intense concentration.

The Sniper suddenly took his eyes off the battle, he looked behind himself and then his eyes stopped directly on Spy. Spy stood stone still in the doorway, waiting for the moment when the Sniper would get up and find him. But the Sniper didn't, he went back to work, apparently uninterested in checking more thoroughly. Spy smiled at how unaware the RED would be to his sneaking up behind him. He wanted to laugh; he could picture the unguarded, startled expression he'd receive, followed by a scowl or some ineffective insult.

He quietly advanced until he was standing right behind the Sniper. He decloaked.

"Bonjour."

The Sniper almost jumped, his grip on his rifle tightened and he spun around to face him. "Bloody piker! Why don't ya just go down there and stand still for me?" He gestured to the ground below the window. His lip curled and his eyes burned into Spy's. A slight flush covered his cheeks–was he embarrassed? Spy wondered if it'd darken if he kept pestering him.

"You had that chance, unfortunately for you, you missed it," Spy replied, grinning at the RED. He knew the man couldn't have seen him while cloaked, he simply said it to tick him off.

In the next instant, something crashed to the floor at Spy's feet, splattering him with lukewarm liquid. Spy flinched at the sudden noise and then realized what'd happened. The Sniper had thrown Jarate at him. Yellow hued fluid was pooled around his feet, glass pieces scattered across the floor. A repulsed outcry escaped him. Spy felt sick, the stench alone made him want to vomit.

"Take that for yer damn cloaking, ya wuss!" the Sniper snarled.

Revulsion clenched in Spy's stomach. Vile, wretched bushman, how could he? The Sniper ran at him, kukri raised and prepared to swing. Spy's wet clothing rubbed against his body as he moved out of the way, and he cursed the Sniper for being so disgusting as to throw his own piss at him. If there was one thing he absolutely couldn't stand about the man, it was that nasty practice.

Spy turned to stab the Sniper, who's back was vulnerable from his missed attack, but the RED forcefully shouldered him away. Spy stumbled, regaining his footing just as the kukri swung into his neck.

. . .

Spy opened his eyes, blinking at the harsh, glaring lights of respawn. Well, he hadn't expected to get his head chopped off, but win some, lose some.

He ran back into the battle, aiming to stop the Engineer from building a sentry.

Demoman went down with a bang in front of him, and Spy looked for the culprit, the RED Sniper, who was still in his perch, shooting BLUs near the payload. Spy felt an annoying tug to go up there again, to reattempt planting his knife between the Sniper's shoulders. And there was nothing wrong with that, he reasoned. He wouldn't provoke the RED to yell at him this time because he wanted to (even though he'd already been thinking up stupid little insults to get them quarreling), and Spy figured that was bad. He shouldn't want to argue with the Sniper.

He cloaked and ran in the direction of the marksman, the Engineer forgotten.

. . .

BLU mercenaries swarmed the cart, vigorously fending off REDs who tried to stop the bomb. Sniper popped their heads from afar, watching them drop to the ground with an emotion that was almost pride; he was pleased with his performance.

Until a blue blur raced into his field of vision.

He struggled to get a shot on the frenetic BLU Scout, and in his tunnel-vision he was oblivious to the warning signs that he was usually so good at picking up. The slight aroma of smoke (trapped in the fabric of the Spy's suit from how often he smoked) tainting crisp aspen air, a minuscule tap on the floor beneath dress shoes, and barely perceptible rustling clothing went unnoticed in his intense concentration.

He never got the headshot on the Scout.

Sniper respawned, frustrated he'd let the Spy creep up on him. The BLU snake seemed intent on killing him today, if he was back so quickly. Seeing as he'd accomplished it, perhaps he'd piss off and let him be for a while.

As he cautiously exited respawn, he knew that was highly improbable. He chose a different spot to shoot from this time, one he didn't often go for. It was a wooden building on the right of the cart's tracks, easily accessible, but had good window placement for the time being; perfect for headshotting the enemy as they ran to the cart. Though the platform upstairs had a better view, Sniper thought it was too open. It'd make him a target for rockets and the enemy Sniper.

He focused his aim on the area in front of the chemical truck, waiting for a BLU to pop their head out from behind it. He fired as soon as he saw the Pyro, who had been unknowing of his new location.

There was a decloak right by his ear. Sniper whirled around to come face to face with the enemy Spy. He was back, already? Had he been watching for him to leave respawn?

Knowing a knife wound was imminent, Sniper stepped towards the exit (he didn't want to be cornered by the Spy) and unsheathed his kukri, annoyed that he'd have to go through another fight with the BLU.

. . .

"What's yer bloody deal lately?" the Sniper growled.

Spy hadn't been expecting a question. He gave his usual smirk. "Nothing new, just can't have you blowing holes in my teammates' heads."

Sniper scoffed, "Ya seem to think yer gonna win this."

"That's true." The Sniper would not be the cause of his respawning again, Spy would make certain of it. He'd already died to him twice in a short period of time, that was enough.

"Yeh? Well, I wouldn't be so sure of yourself." The Sniper advanced on him, kukri poised to slash his neck. Spy didn't want a repeat of his last death, so when the Sniper swung his knife he ducked and darted within the bushman's range to stab him in the side. But instead of the knife sinking past the Sniper's vest and into flesh, the Sniper caught his wrist, preventing the intended stab. Spy hated it when he did that. He tried yanking his hand away, but the Sniper's grip merely shifted from Spy's wrist to the handle of his balisong in an attempt to remove it from his grasp. Spy didn't want that to happen; he twisted his knife, only succeeding in loosening his grip, as the Sniper's was tighter than his; his hand shifted uselessly around the handle. The Sniper took advantage and pulled the butterfly knife out of Spy's hand, to his frustration, tossing it aside where it skidded across the floor and hit the far wall.

It all happened in a short moment, the Sniper's next move was to maneuver his knife between them, perhaps run him through with it. He used Sniper's reflex of grabbing his arm, just to see if it pissed him off as much as it did Spy. Driving knives into backs so often had strengthened his arms, but, even with that, the Sniper was hard to overpower.

So he kicked the sharpshooter in the shin. The Sniper barked out a pained curse and moved his leg away from Spy. Anger flashed across the Sniper's face. He threw himself at Spy, sending them both to the ground with a thud. Spy's elbows hurt from the impact, but he'd managed not to let his head collide with the floor. His next concern was the Sniper's knife, which was being brought to his neck–probably to cleave his head off again–and he punched the man in his side just under the ribcage. The Sniper groaned, but didn't relent; the kukri's edge dug past his balaclava and into his skin. Spy frantically tried to wiggle out from under the Sniper, twisting his body and pushing away from him with his hands. The Sniper's free arm pressed down on his chest, but by then Spy had already halfway freed himself, and he brought his knee up hard into the man's gut, shoving him off. The Sniper let out a breathy grunt, bringing a hand to his stomach.

Spy didn't know why the Sniper didn't just chop at his body with his kukri, why he waited for the perfect killing blow when he could more easily dole out multiple less severe injuries that would stop Spy long enough to kill him.

At some point, the Sniper had let go of his weapon. It occurred to Spy that he'd never used the Sniper's knife before, and that he really wanted to. Both their eyes locked on it simultaneously, but Spy darted for it a second faster than the RED.

The kukri was heavy and awkward in his hand. Spy clumsily lashed out at the Sniper with the weapon when he tried to lunge for it, slashing a deep cut into the man's torso. The Sniper gaped, eyes wide with shock, and pressed his hands to the growing blood stain on his torn shirt. Spy wondered if the cut had gone deep enough to reach the Sniper's entrails, if his hands were the only thing keeping them from spilling out.

"Stop looking at me like that. Bloody finish the job!" the Sniper grit out.

Spy guessed he could. It would take a few minutes for the Sniper to bleed out, and that only meant he'd have to wait longer to kill him again. Which was unsettling, he'd never wanted to kill someone faster for that reason before. Spy's eyebrows furrowed. Maybe he should just leave the Sniper, he needed to get away from him, he made him have odd desires that Spy wasn't quite sure he liked. But he really wanted to kill him too, it was so satisfying, the way his enemies would crumple to the ground after a single stab to the back–and the Sniper was _asking_ for it, practically begging him to do it.

He wasn't good at denying impulses. Spy glanced around the room for his knife and located it near the back wall. He walked over to it and picked it up, brushing dust off the blade and twin handles. The Sniper let out an pain-laced groan, a clear indication he wanted Spy to hurry up. He spun the butterfly knife in his hand once, making sure nothing had been damaged when it'd been flung, then approached the Sniper, who was now supporting himself with one hand braced against the windowsill.

His back was completely unprotected, just waiting for a knife to the spine. It was a familiar sight, one associated with excitement and success, but it didn't make him feel a thrill like when his target was unknowing. That was always preferable, the element of surprise. He liked it when his enemy didn't know what was about to happen, when they were about to die. Which had always been better before he'd worked here, with enemies that could simply come back, because now it didn't really matter as much; life was devalued with the respawn system.

Spy sunk the butterfly knife deftly into the Sniper's back. The RED's body slumped over the window. Spy didn't feel like this kill was as much of an accomplishment, the Sniper had given it to him, wanted the stab. He spun his balisong in his hand, thinking about other times he could make up for this when the Sniper respawned or perhaps during tomorrow's battle.

He cut his musings short at the idea of tracking the Sniper down yet again after he respawned. Spy had other priorities, his team counted on him for more than just killing the enemy Sniper, however nice it was not to have to constantly worry about headshots.

An explosion went off nearby, drawing Spy's attention back to the payload, where the RED Demoman and BLU Soldier were fighting. The Scot's back was to him as he launched and detonated sticky bombs, and Spy took the chance to pull out his revolver and finish him off. Soldier shouted a "thanks" before rocket jumping toward the RED Medic.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i felt too anxious to post only one shitty chapter today, so have 5 and 6 together.
> 
> (sorry my writing quality has decreased lately, i'll try to do better on chapter 7)

Yesterday BLU had won the battle, having an easier time than usual due to Spy's numerous kills on the RED Sniper. Spy had already gotten one kill on him today, but it wasn't very entertaining, just a simple backstab. Those weren't satisfying enough anymore; he craved another knife fight, to drag out their interactions longer, though he wasn't sure why. It was a stray impulse he didn't feel like containing, something that broke up the monotony of his work. Spy let it guide him back to the Sniper, making sure to step a little too loudly once he was close. The Sniper reacted near instantly; he spun around and gripped his kukri, eyes narrowing upon seeing Spy. He watched Spy warily as he set his rifle down against the wall, probably expecting him to attack while he was slightly occupied.

Spy took a couple steps forward, slinking closer to the Sniper. "You're attentive today," Spy commented, trying to dispel the silence between them. He wondered if the Sniper knew he'd purposefully been careless in sneaking up on him, what conclusion the other man might draw from that.

"Have to be, after you targetin' me all yesterday," the RED replied, pulling his kukri from his belt.

"I didn't target you," Spy replied, almost a bit too quickly. Reluctantly, he knew what he'd done could very well be considered targeting, but it sounded worse like that. He hadn't meant to target the Sniper, it'd just kind of... happened. He'd found himself going after him repeatedly and hadn't realized how many times he'd done it.

The Sniper raised a brow, though his expression remained hostile. "And what would you call it?"

Spy thought for a moment. "Ah... Strategic elimination."

"Bullshit." The Sniper didn't pick up Spy's playfulness. He advanced on him, closing the distance. "Ya know, I really don't like doin' it this way. Ya haven't been as quiet as you usually are. Can't ya just stick to your backstabs?"

Spy smirked. "But where's the fun in that?"

"This is fun to you?" The Sniper drew back his knife and swung. Spy'd anticipated the move and backed easily out of the knife's range, slipping up to the Sniper's side while he was turned from his swing's follow-through and watching the other mercenary's expression change as he braced himself for a backstab. But Spy didn't, even though he had the chance. He chuckled. The RED had been so sure he'd made a fatal mistake, that he was finished.

The Sniper reoriented himself, facing Spy again. He wore a frown, but seemed more confused than annoyed now.

Hmm, Spy had expected some kind of response from that, but there was nothing, just the sounds of the battle raging on below them, RED fighting to stop the cart from advancing further past the first capture point.

The Sniper attacked again, but this time the blow glanced off Spy's arm as he tried to avoid it. He grit his teeth, forcing himself to ignore the pain and lash out at the marksman with his balisong. He felt it hit the Sniper's vest, but he hadn't put enough strength in his swipe to penetrate it. Spy cursed under his breath, missing the Sniper's knife aimed at his gut by an inch, circled around to his side and drove his knife into the man's back, hard. The vest did nothing to protect the Sniper now, and he fell to the floor.

That fight had been over with too quickly, Spy decided. He replayed it in his head, remembered the expressions that the Sniper had made during their fleeting interaction.

Exiting the building, Spy looked for someone else to send through respawn, and in doing so locked eyes with the nearby RED Medic. He was armed with his Bonesaw today, which was coated in a fresh layer of blood.

Spy instantly wished he'd cloaked.

The Medic ran at him, and–being surprisingly fast for a man wearing a weighty-looking pack–closed the distance quickly. Spy had two choices: cloak and run like a coward, or fight. He opted for the more dignified of the two, and tightened his grip on his butterfly knife. Dodging the Medic's first charging hack was relatively easy, and Spy cut a mark through the german's blood splattered coat and into skin as the other over-committed to his strike. The Medic jabbed at him with his Bonesaw in return, and Spy hadn't seen it coming in time to move out of the way. The serrated edge of the saw easily cut past his suit and into the flesh of his side. Spy let out a sharp yell at the pain, mouth open in shock and hands instinctively reaching for the bleeding wound. It hurt when he touched it, bloodied his gloves, and he barely looked up in time to dodge the Medic's next attack, which would've cut down to the bone in his forearm for sure.

He slashed at the man with his knife, slicing open his shoulder. It did little to slow him. He retaliated by swiftly swinging his Bonesaw in Spy's direction; it collided with his throat, and he felt a tearing pain as it cut into his carotid artery. Blood ran hot down his neck, and his legs buckled, sending him falling to the ground. He heard the Medic's triumphant laugh, and then nothing.

. . .

Spy walked out of respawn with the intense desire for revenge. His hatred for the RED Medic boiled in his blood. He'd find the man and stab him, and then stab him again when he respawned.

Across the battlefield, Soldier went down from a headshot. The desire to go after the Sniper again outweighed his want to dole out retribution to the Medic. Spy didn't like that. He also didn't like the idea of getting close to RED's doctor again. That angered him–he wasn't afraid of the RED Medic, he wasn't occupying himself with the Sniper to avoid the german. Spy decided he'd kill him before he bothered the marksman again, just to prove to the Medic he wasn't scared of him.

The man was currently healing the Heavy, but they were in the open, out in plain sight. It would be obvious if he decloaked behind them around half the RED team. He needed a disguise. He scanned the battlefield, searching for who was missing. The Engineer could be an option, he'd need to run after them to catch up to the fight–wait, no, he was still alive, he'd just been in the Cave Raider's mine. Spy figured he must have a sentry in there, which meant if he wanted to kill the RED Medic he'd have to do so soon, because they were pushing closer to the mine. Scout tried a flanking attack on them, only to be shot down by the sentry. Spy's attention went back to his disguise kit. He didn't see the Pyro anywhere, but he had no idea how long they'd been dead for. The RED team would find it suspicious if they were back too early.

He didn't have time to worry about it. Spy quickly disguised and ran toward the Medic, opting not to utter any battlecries just so there'd be less attention on him.

As Spy neared them, he knew it was too late for a stab, they were too close to the sentry now. The Heavy glanced around and then behind himself, eyes falling on Spy, who had stopped his pursuit. Spy had seconds to act. He pulled out his revolver and shot, consequently losing his disguise. He scowled as the Heavy moved to block all three of his bullets aimed at the Medic.

"Spy!" the Heavy roared, wheeling around to face him and opening fire. Spy had nowhere to run; he woke up in the respawn room.

That hadn't gone to plan.

Spy stood in respawn, fuming. What an absolute idiot he must've looked like. Spy still wanted to kill the Medic–and the Heavy too–but it wasn't worth the risk of messing up again and looking even more like a fool. He'd get them later, he had better things to do.

He headed toward the Sniper, telling himself this was the last time he'd attack him for an hour.

As the day dragged on, Spy kept himself from targeting the Sniper excessively, though he knew he still troubled the man more often then he had in previous months. The Sniper was just... interesting. So he drug out his kills, purposely made his presence known instead of quickly stabbing and running. He didn't know what made the Sniper more intriguing than the other REDs, but he simply didn't get the same excitement out of fighting them. He was different, somehow. He shot from a distance, preferred to keep to himself instead of jumping into the fray. Spy supposed it was that seclusiveness that caught his interest, made him want to know the Sniper more because he was so secretive. What else would?

(Spy would later realize that, for someone so observant, he could be painfully oblivious of his own feelings.)

He thought about the Sniper too much recently; Spy needed to get him off his mind, so he busied himself with the task of sapping the Engineer's sentry.

Disguising himself as the Scout, he ran along the outskirts of the battle feigning injury, and slowed when he got close to his target. The Engineer was turned away from him, engaged with using his wrench to hit things into place on his dispenser. Spy placed a sapper on the sentry and pulled out his knife.

"Spy sappin'-"

Spy cut him off with a neat backstab before he finished turning around; the wrench he'd been about to use as a weapon fell from his limp hand. The sentry crackled with electricity and emitted alarm noises before finally shorting out and falling apart. Spy took the chance to sap the dispenser too, then cloaked and looked around to see if anyone had heard. The RED Scout was heading his way, but Spy was already abandoning the evidence, there was no chance he'd find him.

"There's a Spy over here!" the Scout shouted. He swung his bat at random areas to check if Spy was still around. But the bat only connected with empty air, and he was forced to give up and pursue more productive activities, like shooting at the enemy Medic.

The Heavy responded to the Scout's alert by unleashing an arc of bullets around himself, but they didn't reach where Spy was hidden. Knowing his cloak was running out, he ran to the nearest building to let it recharge. He pressed his back up against the wood boards as the RED Soldier ran by, who wasn't vigilant enough to take a closer look at the inside of the building, being too focused on whatever he was going to do.

There was the loud sound of a rifle firing, and Spy wondered if the Sniper had hit his target. That would mean another ten minutes of disadvantage for BLU, something Spy could've prevented if he hadn't been so concerned with limiting his kills on the Sniper. He should stop worrying about it so much and just kill the man whenever it was necessary. At least, that's what he wanted to do. It was difficult to restrain oneself and then have to do the thing you were trying not to. Well, he could always get rid of the restraint...

He flexed his fingers, aching to feel the Sniper's pulse pounding away under them again. He wanted to find him, he'd had enough of holding himself back. His job was to kill REDs, and that's exactly what he'd be doing.

Gunshots and explosions sounded more distant; BLU must be making a push now that the sentry was down. With his cloak fully charged, Spy ran back to the fight. He stayed visible until he was halfway through the old mine, then cloaked. The payload had gone about a meter from the mine's exit, and without Scout to run alongside it and help shoot at the enemy, it had been abandoned in order for BLU team not to be picked off. It was an annoying stop-and-go process; one of his teammates would get to the cart, push it a small distance, be shot at, drive their attacker back, and repeat.

Circling around the side of the cart, Spy aimed to get behind the newly respawned enemy Pyro. They were hindering BLU the most, and constant screams of "fire!" or "I'm burning!" were getting on Spy's nerves nearly as much as they were Medic's.

A rocket fired; Spy was unfortunately close to it.


	6. Chapter 6

There was the sound of heavy, irregular footsteps behind him, and Sniper whirled around, fingers instinctively grasping the handle of his kukri. But he wasn't faced with an enemy, instead with Scout, bleeding profusely from rocket shrapnel imbedded in his left side. He staggered in, only to slump against the wall. Sniper wasn't sure if the young man even saw him.

Sniper didn't know why Scout came here, he should be off trying to get Medic's attention, a health kit, or at least die somewhere that wasn't near him. That sounded awful in his head, but Sniper didn't want to watch his teammate die in front of him, no matter how normal death was here with the respawn system. Scout's breathing was labored, he had lost a lot of blood and probably wouldn't last much longer. Sniper was at a loss for what to do, and he certainly didn't know what to say, but he had to say something, right?

"What're ya doin' here, mate?" Sniper managed. "Isn't Medic around?"

Scout raised his head, as if he had only just noticed Sniper's presence, but he didn't say anything.

Sniper went to shake Scout's right shoulder but paused. "Hey, are ya gonna be okay?" Which was a dumb thing to ask, it was obvious Scout wasn't going to be okay.

"Fuck off, I'm tryna die here," Scout spat, even though the words came out laboriously and pained.

Sniper was taken aback. Scout had never spoken to him so rudely before. Maybe it was the pain he was in, but that wasn't really an excuse, as it was him who had dragged himself in here and made his dying Sniper's problem. Nevertheless, the sharpshooter turned around and resumed his work–or, at least, he tried to. There was something about someone dying in the same room and not doing anything to help them that made Sniper feel extremely guilty; his aim wavered from the distraction.

However, after a few more seconds he couldn't hear anymore gasps from Scout, and he hesitantly glanced behind himself. He started when he saw the BLU Spy's lifeless body slumped against the wall instead of Scout's.

So that explained Scout's rudeness, he should've known. Sniper was a bit disappointed with himself for not picking up on that. The BLU Spy wasn't great at impersonating people, but he wasn't bad either, he'd convinced Sniper he was a teammate many times before. But why had he come here? He surely had to have known Sniper was here, he wasn't exactly hard to spot through the glassless window. Sniper figured he just wanted to unnerve him, he wouldn't put something like this past the Spy.

It was just another thing that reminded him of their current situation. He wanted the Spy to leave him alone, to go back to his backstabs, but he didn't know how to make him stop. He was afraid that if he tried to teach the Spy a lesson, drug out a particularly painful kill, that it would provoke him to act worse. And Sniper hated close combat, not because he was bad at it, but because, even after all this time, he still felt the moral wrongness of doing it.

Before he'd worked for RED, whenever an assassination had gone wrong and the target had somehow gotten close enough to him to fight back, that was when Sniper felt the full weight of what he was doing. It became a real person he was killing, a person who was trying to protect themselves, someone who had never done him any wrong. Sniper wondered how many of the people he killed were innocent of the things his payers accused them of (if he was even given a reason they needed to die at all). He knew they lied, they were awful–drug dealers, gang members, and people who just held a grudge that were rich enough to pay him. Anyone who would hire someone to kill another was blatantly not to be trusted, and he'd hated his job but hadn't known how to get out of it.

It'd taken him a while to not feel like the scum of the earth after that period in his life. At one point he remembered thinking he wouldn't care if someone killed him, because the people he was around were certainly not below that. Even working here, he still felt the guilt of what he did. Not when he was sniping, but during those personal, close-quarter struggles when he was forced to use his kukri. Sure, it was lessened when he knew the people he killed would just come back, but he disliked it and he hated the BLU Spy for forcing knife-fights upon him. Sniper recalled the Spy saying this was fun; he thought there must be something a bit screwed up in his brain for this to be considered amusing. This shouldn't be fun for anybody, it definitely wasn't for the rest of his team, perhaps excluding Medic, now that he thought about it.

He'd zoned out in his thinking, costing him at least two kills. Sniper wouldn't let the Spy do this to him, he wouldn't let him interfere with his performance. If he wanted to keep up his kill count he needed to be focused. But not too focused, because in ten minutes the Spy would be back and then he wouldn't hear him, and the last thing he wanted was to die to a backstab again.

. . .

When Spy respawned, he headed straight for the Sniper. It wouldn't do to have him shooting through his teammates' skulls, he told himself.

He was still in the same sniping spot, hunched over his rifle and lining up a shot on Heavy. Spy chose this moment to uncloak behind him.

The Sniper stood up straight–as if he wasn't already tall slouching–and faced him, kukri drawn. At times, Spy felt self-conscious of his height when near the RED; painfully average, short, even. He hated that feeling–perceived inferiority–and glared up at the object of his frequent attentions. (He wished they were infrequent.)

"S'matter Spook?" the Sniper taunted. "Get yer fur rubbed the wrong way?"

His voice was infuriating. _Stupid, ignorant bushman_. Didn't he have any notion of what Spy had done, how irritatingly fascinated he was with him? Because that's all this was, simple fascination. Spy wasn't capable of much more. He'd chosen to take shelter in the Sniper's presence because he knew he was going to die–it wasn't significant–and because he wanted the Sniper to _know_ -

Know _what_ , exactly?

Spy wasn't sure, and he didn't care enough to mull it over while the Sniper ran him through with his kukri. He sidestepped away from the slash and flicked open his balisong, grabbing the Sniper's hand to stop him from using his knife, and held his own to the Sniper's throat. The Sniper took a few steps backward, and Spy pushed him the rest of the way against the wall. His mood changed at the gain of control; he couldn't be frustrated when he had the Sniper like this.

Now to make it interesting.

"You've been on my mind lately," Spy purred, pressing his balisong to the Sniper's skin.

He watched the predictable widening of eyes, the way the sharpshooter's lips parted, how his brow creased; the epitome of unease.

"Creep," the Sniper muttered.

"No, not really," Spy uncurled the Sniper's fingers from the kukri, the man too concerned with his own safety to protest. A knife to the throat could be quite persuasive, after all. "It's actually become a bit of an annoyance." He tossed the Sniper's weapon behind him, keeping a grip on his wrist. The Sniper raised his other arm, possibly to push the balisong away from his jugular, and Spy pressed on his knife harder. The marksman froze.

"Hey, watch it!" the Sniper blurted out. "Ya don't need to do that." It was a stupid attempt to change Spy's mind.

"But I want to," Spy responded, angling his knife upwards so that it pointed into the underside of the Sniper's jaw. He imagined the Sniper did not want to die like this, he'd made it known multiple times in the past that it was one of his least favorite deaths, accompanied with stabbing his kukri through Spy's chest, of course. He could practically hear the Sniper's thoughts race, the internal panic he must be feeling.

The Sniper's hand carefully rested on Spy's side, warm, placating–a last effort to stop him. Spy glanced down at it. He was not convinced.

He moved his balisong away, watching as the Sniper let out a shallow breath of relief, though he didn't look very relieved. He was possibly anticipating some other unpleasant death. Spy smirked. With one sudden forceful movement, he slashed his knife across the Sniper's throat, scoring a deep gash that overflowed with blood. The Sniper's expression contorted into one of shock. He pushed Spy away and cupped his neck, blood running between his fingers and splattering to the floor.

It was a captivating sight, but Spy couldn't stay. There was an unfamiliar feeling tugging in his chest, some kind of wanting, and he didn't trust himself to be around the Sniper any longer. He didn't know what he might do, but he knew it couldn't be anything good.

"Au revoir," Spy waved as he left, cloaking and leaving the Sniper to choke to death on his own blood, or bleed out, whichever happened first.

He grinned to himself. The Sniper was so fun to mess with, he loved teasing reactions out of him. Unfortunately, the battle wouldn't last long enough for the Sniper to respawn. The sun had set, which was near the time daily battles ended, and the cart was rolling backwards. With more than half of Spy's team dead and the rest struggling against the enemy, no one was able to push it.

A rocket went off, followed by the RED Medic's laughter and Spy looked to see what had happened.

Oh. Soldier had accidentally killed himself with his own rocket. _Nice_ , Spy thought sarcastically. What a way to end the fight.

The administrator counted down the remaining seconds before announcing BLU's failure. His weapons, Invis Watch, and sapper were teleported to the resupply room, leaving him feeling defenseless and vulnerable. He had nothing to protect himself against the RED Engineer, who gunned him down with his Frontier Justice, probably payback for sapping his machinery.

Spy respawned. There was very little to do around the base; he wasted time hanging around the main room smoking until dinner was ready, which didn't take too long.

Dinners at the BLU base were rarely peaceful. There was always some kind of argument, usually initiated by Soldier, who seemed to think he was the team's leader and reserved the right to bitch them out after battles.

Spy walked into the dining room to see Soldier had prepared his signature meal: orange rice and chicken. He was currently yelling at Medic. Spy sighed, this would be fun to listen to, since a spot was reserved for him beside Medic, along with a plate. Spy served himself and prepared for an assault on his ears as Soldier opened his mouth again.

"I. Was. On. FIRE. And you didn't help me! You were too busy with your Medi Gun up Heavy's ass!"

"Gross, Soldier, I'm tryna eat here." Scout made a face.

This was the kind of thing Spy didn't like listening to. Sometimes he would eavesdrop on his teammates while pretending to read, if it was anything interesting (most of the time it wasn't, Spy just had nothing better to do), but often he was stuck with this kind of stupidity–pointless arguing–which seemed to be Soldier's specialty.

"And you!" Soldier jabbed his fork in Scout's direction. "You barely helped push the cart at all! You prefer getting mowed down by sentries over helping your team!"

Scout's expression became tinged with embarrassment.

"You speak as though you didn't blow yourself to bits attempting a rocket jump," Spy cut in.

Soldier slammed his fist on the table. Plates and cutlery rattled. "Shut up! You do not have permission to speak, seeing as you didn't even manage to backstab the Pyro!"

Sure that saying anything else would lead to more of an argument, Spy silently resumed eating his dinner. He wasn't very hungry, despite it being near nine o'clock at night and not having eaten since breakfast. After eating half his meal, he left the table, dumping the remainder of his food in the trash. The team's squabbling had subsided into calmer talking amongst each other, and Spy decided to stick around. He returned to his seat, making conversation with Scout, who liked to talk about the day's fight, specifically the awesome kills he had gotten. Spy didn't really care, but didn't dislike talking to Scout either, so he stayed as long as he could, until everyone started leaving. It was something to do. It was night, the team would go to sleep after dinner, and oftentimes things only got worse from there.

 


	7. Chapter 7

After what had happened yesterday, Sniper hadn't felt like coming back out onto the battlefield, the fact that he _had to_ was the only reason he was here. It's not that he was scared, he just didn't want to deal with the Spy again, who certainly had a plan to make his day miserable. When he'd respawned last night the battle had been over and that final death had been stuck in his head for the entire evening. The Spy hadn't killed him like that in a while, and the times when he had hadn't been that drawn out or tense.

Sniper kept thinking about what he'd said.

He was on the Spy's mind.

The Spy was thinking about him.

That made Sniper incredibly uncomfortable, there was no good that could possibly come out of it. The Spy wasn't someone he wanted focused on him, for obvious reasons.

He gazed out the window, intent on finding the BLU Spy and shooting him before he could get up to his sniping spot. He didn't want the Spy to be anywhere near him, the longer the man spent in respawn the longer Sniper didn't have to worry.

A few minutes and a dead BLU Engineer later, Sniper caught sight of him running behind Demo, knife raised, prepared to stab his unsuspecting teammate's back. Sniper shot him in the head.

"Aye, thanks!" Demo shouted up to him after seeing what'd happened, waving.

Sniper waved back, feeling happy with himself. That was one headshot on the enemy Spy, one less backstab. Now if only he could keep that up for the rest of the fight. The BLU Spy would most likely be after him once he respawned, so Sniper would have to keep a close lookout for any teammates acting weird or flashes of blue. But for now he didn't have to be concerned with the Spy, he had at least ten minutes to be calm, to not have to constantly watch his back or be on alert. He grabbed his coffee mug and took a sip of the meager amount remaining.

He allowed himself a moment to simply relax, stare over the horizon serrated with sharp conifer tree tops. Swiftwater seemed to be in a constant spring state, with its green grass and bright blue sky. It wasn't always this way though, during winter it got cold, it snowed. A plethora of the white flakes would cover the ground, gather on the trees' branches, and eventually the stream would freeze, too. It was pretty, but it was awful to work in. Sniper despised the cold. Certain places would get slippery, especially stairs and the bridge between two of the buildings over the second check point. No one liked trudging through snow, either.

Sniper sighed. He considered the possibility that maybe things weren't so bad. If he really tried, he could keep the BLU Spy away from him. Not every time, but if he focused more on looking for him he'd certainly get more kills on the man. And, despite not knowing the Spy's preferred travel routes (spies tended to avoid making predictable habits like that), he knew signs to look out for. If a teammate got too close to another's back most of the time it was the Spy, and sometimes Sniper would get lucky while looking through his scope and see a section of grass flatten where he was stepping while cloaked. These were things that would help him avoid unpleasant situations with the Spy if he just took the time to pay attention.

The BLU Medic was rushing around below him, he bounced back and forth between the Heavy and the Soldier to heal the damage they were taking pushing forward with the cart. Sniper lined up his shot and fired; the Medic dropped to the ground. This resulted in a rocket being launched his direction, but it missed the window Sniper was shooting from and only shook the building.

Fortunately, the Soldier got caught up in a fight with Scout before he could fire another rocket Sniper's way, and he concentrated to headshot the enemy Sniper.

The other marksman had spotted him. Sniper darted behind the wall and a bullet whizzed past his head. He didn't risk peeking out the window to try and get a shot on the other Sniper, he could wait. When he saw Sniper wasn't coming out he'd have to give up and shoot at other REDs, otherwise he'd just be wasting his time and opportunities.

It gave Sniper a moment to think, too. His brain brought up the subject of the BLU Spy again, even though Sniper would rather think about anything else. He figured he must've ticked the Spy off somehow, done something to warrant his sudden change of behavior. But he couldn't remember doing anything other than his job, and certainly more professionally than the Spy. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, he'd done to deserve his anger–if that was even what it was. The Spy didn't look angry when he killed him, and that's what was confusing.

Did the Spy actually enjoy it? Enjoy killing him? Sniper brushed a hand over his throat, remembering yesterday's painful incident where he'd let the BLU get a little too close.

He wouldn't let that happen today.

A shot rang out nearby, the distinct sound of a sniper rifle firing. The BLU Sniper had moved on to other targets, just what Sniper had been waiting for. He moved back to his spot in the window, scoped in on his target's head, and took the shot.

The gunshot echoes into silence, and it's too quiet, too tense. The air feels thick and suffocating, and Sniper waits. There will be a blade in his back soon, or worse, maybe there won't be. And that's what really sets him on edge, knowing the BLU Spy probably won't backstab him, will probably opt to fight knife against knife instead, just like he likes to, just like Sniper hates to. It's not a feeling of remorse that comes with killing the Spy, it's that he knows if he fucks up, lets the Spy get the upper hand, that the BLU will make his death some form of unpleasant, whether it's a grisly kill or something unsettling he has to say.

Sniper glanced behind himself, not comforted by the sight of an empty room. He didn't look away until he was sure the Spy would've run out of cloak. He wasn't taking any chances, not after yesterday, when the Spy had proven to have a few more screws loose than Sniper had initially thought. He remembered the fervency in his gaze when he'd held the knife to his throat, the lack of the proper, cool detachment that should've been there.

The Spy wasn't right in the head, and Sniper didn't want to know just how crazy he could be by letting him get close. Whatever set the Spy off Sniper wanted to avoid, and it seemed that the more personal their fights were, the farther from a clean backstab they strayed, the worse the Spy behaved.

On the ground below, the Heavy forced Sniper's teammates back with his minigun. It wasn't a challenge to shoot him, the man was moving slowly in one direction. Sniper hid himself from view again, the same way he had when the BLU Sniper had been aiming at him. But it didn't sound like anyone was interested in coming after him, so after a minute Sniper resumed looking for BLUs to kill.

He spotted the enemy Spy uncloaking beside a crate and wasted no time shooting him.

"Take that, ya backstabbin' piker," Sniper muttered.

That was two kills on the Spy now, and the BLU hadn't managed to get up to his sniping spot once. Luck seemed to be on his side today. But Sniper knew if the Spy hadn't been thinking about killing him then, he certainly was now after that second headshot death. He'd be facing trouble soon, it was just a matter of time. And that was fine, Sniper would be ready for him.

. . .

The Spy should've been out of respawn by now. Sniper checked his watch; it'd been a little over twenty minutes since he'd killed the BLU. Where was he? He'd expected him to be up here as soon as he respawned. The Spy wasn't anywhere in sight, either. Sniper felt uneasy knowing he was possibly sneaking up on him right now, he turned around and shot once at the doorway.

Nothing.

There was nobody here but him.

Sniper continued shooting at the BLUs below, growing frustrated when he missed a shot on the Demoman pushing the cart. The Scot drunkenly threw his bottle of Scrumpy toward Sniper and the bottle shattered against the front of the building. Some slurred cursing followed, and Sniper had enough time to fire a second bullet at the Demoman. He didn't miss.

His next target was the Scout, who was the only one left at the payload. He'd seen Sniper headshot the Demoman though, and began running in random directions to avoid being killed. The Scout shot up at him, and Sniper ducked out of the way to not be hit.

Footsteps sounded from the stairway, and Sniper found himself confronted with the Spy uncloaking in front of him.

He looked at the BLU, and all that anger he'd pushed down came back. He wanted to hurt the Spy, wanted to make him pay for what he'd been doing. Sniper swung his rifle into the side of the Spy's head with a crack, and the man stumbled backwards, a hand coming up to clutch his skull. The Spy was distracted with pain, Sniper took his chance to unbalance him; he kicked him in the gut, hard. There was an "uff!" as air was forced out of the Spy's lungs from the blow's strength, and he fell backwards, one arm flailing out behind himself in an attempt to soften his fall.

The Spy knew he was in a bad position. He started to prop himself upright, but Sniper aimed his rifle at his head and the BLU stilled, looking up at him over the gun's barrel.

"You're really starting to piss me off, Spook," Sniper growled. The Spy looked surprised at this sudden turn of events, or maybe scared. Good. He deserved to be.

Sniper could shoot him in the shoulder, the thigh–anywhere that wouldn't mean an instant, painless death–but he didn't. The Spy was utterly at his mercy, he had the man that'd been targeting him for the past two weeks staring up the barrel of his gun and yet Sniper couldn't bring himself to further injure him.

He wanted to threaten him, but he had no idea what to say that could possibly make the Spy stay away from him. There probably wasn't anything he could say that'd have that effect. There was only one thing he really could do.

Sniper pulled the trigger.


	8. Chapter 8

Spy came through respawn with a frown on his face. He'd tried to leave the Sniper alone during the start of the match, and what had he been rewarded with? One sentence and a bullet through the brain, not to mention the other two headshots when he'd just been minding his own business.

It bothered him that the Sniper was so ungrateful, that he would purposely seek him out and shoot him when he'd made such great efforts to ignore him picking off his teammates.

BLU was doing badly because of it; it'd been two hours since the match started and they'd only pushed the payload a few feet from the first checkpoint. This was unacceptable, according to Medic, who had begun yelling at him because it was "his fault we're losing" and "if you just backstabbed the damn Sniper instead of whatever that pathetic attempt was we'd be through the mine by now!"

Medic had died to the Sniper twice, and Spy's incompetence only frustrated him further. He ran back out into the fight before Spy could make a retort, Medi Gun raised and ready.

It wasn't Spy's fault BLU was losing, he didn't carry the team that much. It was Medic's fault for not paying more attention to dangers around him. He was the backbone of the team, without his übers and healing fumes of his Medi Gun they didn't stand a chance, he needed to watch out more. He overextended, too. Spy could see him urging Heavy to rush at the Soldier, Pyro, and Demoman.

Spy made his way out of respawn carefully, looking up at the building the Sniper was in to assure he was focused on someone else as he crossed the bridge. Today, the stream was low and sluggish. Grass on its banks swayed gently in a soft breeze, a contrast to the violent sounds of battle taking place. Spy cloaked and made it across the remaining stretch of grass, uncloaking once he was halfway up the stairway where he was obscured from view. He lightly ascended the remaining steps, stopping when he reached the top. The Sniper hadn't heard him, or, at least, gave no indication he'd heard him. He could be waiting for Spy to get close, then whip around with his kukri at the last second, or strike him in the head with his gun again. That'd been a dizzying blow, something Spy would be more wary of in the future.

He looked at the Sniper, back facing him, still peering down his scope at Spy's teammates. He fired, but grumbled under his breath afterward, making it evident he missed the shot.

Spy had to backstab him. He was doing too well, regardless of that one miss. If Spy died again his team would chew him out. He couldn't risk messing up again. His last encounter with the Sniper had gone wrong, horribly so; upon his uncloaking there'd been a meeting of eyes, Spy's hesitation for whatever damnable reason, and then a gun smashing into his temple and a boot to the gut. Of course he'd fallen, and the Sniper had wasted no time rendering him helpless with his rifle aimed at his head. It'd been surprising, such a quick defeat, and he still felt smoldering embarrassment.

He should really kill him. Right now before he turned around and saw him standing where he'd already been paused for too long.

But a backstab was the last thing he felt like doing right now, he would much rather do something more interesting.

Spy realized he'd been staring at the Sniper during the entirety of his thinking, and considered how weird it might look to an outside observer, like the Administrator.

He didn't know how much the Administrator saw of his actions towards the RED Sniper, and he suddenly felt very conscious of his recent behavior. Did she care? Would she punish him? Or did she just see this as a similar situation to Soldier and the RED Demoman? She saw everything, of course she had to have noticed his increased attention on the Sniper.

Spy glanced around, as if he could spot one of her cameras, even though he knew he couldn't. They were tiny, well hidden things, Spy had found one in his room the first night of his employment and crushed it. He didn't know if she had replaced it or if she had more. He'd check, sometimes, but only when he was bored. They were completely controlled, calm look-overs that certainly weren't done in an urgent state of paranoia. He didn't completely trash his room searching, causing the place to be more disorganized than his team would think. No, he didn't do that. He just hated being watched, the idea of the Administrator monitoring him in a secret room through a screen made his skin crawl.

She had to have seen him interact with the Sniper, but there was nothing to be worried about, he hadn't done anything wrong. Spy stopped himself from thinking about this anymore, there was no reason for her to be interested in his situation. She couldn't read his mind, know how often the damned bushman occupied his thoughts. Spy didn't even know why he had been concerned in the first place. The Administrator didn't care what he did with the Sniper, as long as one of them ended up dead.

Which gave him more of an excuse not to backstab the Sniper. But, ah, he'd been procrastinating. Time to do something.

Spy quietly walked up behind the marksman, knife drawn. He considered it for a moment, deciding if he should just sink it into the Sniper's back and be done, wait for when the RED respawned to do something else. But Spy was as eager as the Sniper was patient, he didn't want to wait.

He'd compromise.

Spy stabbed the Sniper in his right side, just below the ribcage. The Sniper cried out, dropping his rifle as his hands rushed to the knife embedded in his flesh. Before he could attempt something stupid like try to remove the blade or grab his kukri, Spy pulled him backwards, one foot stuck out to trip him. His next move was to disarm him; he grabbed the Sniper's knife and tossed it down the gap in the floorboards.

The Sniper struggled underneath him, making movements that all stopped abruptly halfway due to his muscles painfully clenching around the knife in his side. He made strangled noises of discomfort all the while, and Spy grabbed ahold of his knife to force him to stop thrashing. Blood was pushing out from around the knife, it soaked through his vest and smeared on the floor when he moved. The Sniper's hands shakily rested on Spy's, trying to stop him from jostling the blade.

"F-Fuck. Bloody Spy," the Sniper gasped, chest heaving. His face was contorted in a grimace of pain, almost a snarl.

Spy could see the Sniper looking at him, but instead of allowing eye contact he looked at the hands wrapped around his own one, saw and felt them try to loosen his grip. That only prompted Spy to twist the knife, causing the Sniper to yell. His light grasp turned into a white-knuckled grip around Spy's hand, his legs jerked and his knees drew up towards his chest.

"Agh," the Sniper sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. "Fuck. You. I hope y–"

Spy pressed on the knife, turning the Sniper's breathy insult into a shout.

He laughed, sounding like someone responding to a stupid joke, not an enemy writhing in agony on the floor. Spy didn't bother doing anything more than put a hand on the Sniper's stomach to ensure he stayed down, he didn't think the man would be able to fight through the pain enough to get up, never mind attack him.

Spy pulled the knife free from the Sniper's flesh, eliciting an exclamation of pain and blood leaking out of the wound; it added to the rapidly growing puddle on the floor.

"I can send you through respawn, if you want," Spy stated, inspecting the crimson coating the grey of his knife.

The Sniper grunted.

Spy considered making him say it, making the Sniper beg to be backstabbed so he could respawn pain-free, but he had already lost too much blood and wouldn't last much longer. It'd be a shame if he bled out. Spy rolled him over onto his stomach. When he rested a hand on his back he flinched, he had probably been expecting the knife. Spy could feel how tense the muscles were in the Sniper's thoracic underneath his shirt and vest, all prepared for a stab. He pressed his fingers down, feeling how the muscles tightened.

"Just get it over with."

Spy frowned. Fine.

With the Sniper dead, Spy suddenly felt a heavy lack of enthusiasm for the rest of his job. During the time it took for the Sniper to respawn he'd have to get other kills on the rest of the REDs, return to mundane, normal activities. He wiped the majority of the blood off his knife using the Sniper's vest. Spy would've dragged out killing him longer, but he had Medic waiting on him and he'd already taken an unusual amount of time–way more than needed for a backstab. He hoped Medic wouldn't make much of it.

From the entryway of Shifty's Quick Shot, he could see the RED Soldier firing rockets at the cart. He was preventing Spy's teammates from getting near it, it'd be useful if he could take him out. Spy cloaked and headed for the American, slipping up behind him and delivering a quick, lethal stab. It was easy, too simple. He much preferred his fights with the Sniper over this. But for now he had to deal with what he could do, and on his third stab he was feeling a bit more energized, there was a spring in his gait as he stepped over the Heavy's body.

When he killed the Demoman he couldn't help but smile, he was starting a decent kill count and had aided BLU enough for them to push the cart through the mine.

Medic hustled up behind him, enveloping him in the Medi Gun's warm, comforting fumes.

"You're doing well, keep it up," Medic encouraged, for once. Spy wasn't used to praise, his teammates typically supplied only harsh scolding, and, if one was doing well, silence. It was rare to ever be complimented on anything.

Medic left Spy slightly overhealed; he felt like he'd just drank two coffees and had the energy to race Scout.

He spotted a blur of red uniform in his peripheral vision, and turned to see the Sniper had respawned and was making his way to his usual sniping spot above the second checkpoint. He'd bother with him after he killed the RED Pyro.

They had absolutely no idea he was behind them, it gave Spy a rush, he loved sneaking up behind a completely clueless enemy. In one swift motion, his knife sunk past the asbestos suit and into the Pyro's back. By the time they hit the ground, Spy was cloaked again and heading for cover in one of the buildings.

He glanced at the battlements to find the Sniper was missing from his shooting spot. Had someone killed him already? Spy scoured the battlefield for a glimpse of the Sniper, relieved to find him walking away from the Engineer's dispenser. It would've been disappointing if he'd been killed before Spy got to him, he would've had to wait another ten minutes.

Spy grabbed his kit and disguised as the Demoman before approaching the Sniper.

He took no measures to be quiet, nor did he advance from behind, he didn't want the sharpshooter to suspect he wasn't actually who he appeared as.

"Hey mate," the Sniper smiled at him–or, really, he smiled at the RED Demoman. It stirred a sudden wave of dislike for the Scot–and a pang of jealousy.

That was odd. Of course he wasn't jealous, what was there to be jealous of? Spy tried to rid himself of the feeling, but underneath his feigned indifference it was still there.

His expression must've changed, because the Sniper gave him a quizzical look that bordered on concern. Spy imitated one of the Demoman's drunken burps, swayed on his feet, and the Sniper chuckled with a slight shake of his head, walking past him. Spy quietly turned, taking a couple strides after the Sniper before stabbing his exposed back. The disguise fizzled and vaporized. The Sniper cried out and reached for the knife in his back, but Spy dug it in harder between his spinal vertebrae and the RED crumpled to the ground.

He was revealed to the RED team now, but Spy didn't care, even as he drew his revolver to return fire at the Engineer, even as he woke up in respawn after being shot. He'd done enough in that life that it didn't matter if he died this time. That didn't mean it was pleasant, a bullet in the chest never was, but it was just another an unavoidable everyday occurrence.

Spy ran back onto the battlefield, set on killing the Sniper again.

. . .

He heard the Spy uncloak this time. Sniper set his rifle down and spun around, pulling his kukri free from it's sheath.

The Spy was standing in the middle of the room, he hadn't even tried to uncloak farther away so that Sniper wouldn't hear it, he didn't even have his knife out. Was he that sure of himself? Still fuming over his last death, Sniper ran forward and swung his kukri at the Spy, aiming to hack into the side of his neck. The Spy stepped away from the blow, reaching into his suit jacket, and Sniper stopped him before he could pull a weapon out, grabbed him by his lapels and slammed him against the wall. The revolver fell to the floor and Sniper kicked it out of easy reach.

"I fuckin' hate you," he seethed. And he didn't know what else to say because that's all he felt, absolute hatred for the Spy. He wanted to gut the BLU, spill his entrails onto the floor and make him watch and feel every second of it. He plunged his kukri through the man's abdomen, watched his eyes widen and mouth open in a soundless scream. Sniper pulled his kukri out of him and the Spy slid to the floor, leaving a smear of blood down the wall.

Sniper walked away, focused on the battle again, not the breathy little gasps the Spy was making as he died. He didn't look away from his scope until the Spy's body faded into respawn, streaks of blood all that was left as evidence he'd died there.

He was still angry. He wished Medic would get ahold of the Spy and experiment on him, cut into him with his scalpel without anesthesia. He wanted him to feel what it was like to have someone toy with him, hurt him for amusement. It had to be Medic because Sniper surely couldn't do it.

But eventually his rage wore off, and ten minutes later Sniper was a worried mess, glancing behind himself every minute, at any sound that had the slightest possibility of being the BLU Spy. He'd taken his kukri out and laid it on the windowsill, so he'd have it at the ready as soon as the Spy showed himself.

His kukri moved to the edge of the window, it teetered on the sill for a moment and then fell; Sniper's reflexes were a second too late and it clattered to the ground below.

"Oops."

Sniper heard the Spy uncloak. He turned around to see the masked man smiling, knife held behind his back.

"Bugger," Sniper growled. He didn't see himself getting out of this one alive, by the time he got his gun the Spy would've slit his throat. How much longer he would last was unfortunately up to the BLU.

"Why are ya so set on constantly trackin' me down?"

The Spy shrugged. "I guess it's because you're the only thing of interest to me; I'm curious."

Great. The BLU Spy had a morbid fascination with him, it seemed.

"Yeh, well curiosity killed the cat," Sniper reminded him.

"That doesn't really matter if the cat has infinite lives, now does it?" the Spy responded, spinning his butterfly knife.

Sniper supposed not, but he wasn't one to come up with clever comebacks, that was more of a Spy thing. He just wanted the pesky shit to leave him alone for thirty minutes. He didn't need to be struggling on the floor, fighting for his life and bleeding out every half hour, which seemed to be how this was going to go down, seeing as he didn't have his knife anymore. He was screwed, utterly screwed.

The Spy took a step forward and Sniper felt a wave of panic crash into him. He couldn't go through this again, he wouldn't. He rushed at the Spy, intending to grab his knife and toss it out the window just like the Spy had with his kukri, but the BLU slashed the blade across his hand. Sniper yelled, jerking his arm back instantly, hand clutched to his body.

"I wouldn't try that, if I were you," the Spy's tone was light, clearly not understanding how bad the injury hurt or more likely just not caring. Blood was gushing out of it, it dripped in dark red spots onto the cement.

"You fuckin'–you–ergh," Sniper could barely think through the pain. " _Bastard_."

The Spy smirked, advancing on him with the knife. Sniper's right heel hit the wall, and he hadn't even realized he'd been backpedalling until now. The Spy pushed him backwards, and suddenly the possibility of him falling out the window became very real.

"Now, I could make this simple and just cut your throat, but that wouldn't be very fun, would it?" the Spy said, pushing more of his weight against Sniper.

Sniper thought it would be horrible, but probably the quickest way to die. He could already imagine the Spy pushing him out the window, how painful it'd be to fall from this height. He hated the Spy for this, he hated him he hated him he hated him–

There was a loud explosion, and Sniper's eyes automatically shut in response. The weight of the Spy suddenly vanished, and he opened his eyes to see the BLU laying on the floor with bits of shrapnel scattered around him.

_What the bloody hell just happened?_

Sniper looked out the window to see Soldier's cheerful face and the man waving up at him before rocket jumping off.

He was dumbfounded. He'd gone from being as good as dead to safe in a heartbeat. Sniper had never gotten so lucky, he needed to thank Soldier for the assistance later, but for now he just needed a health kit for his hand.


	9. Chapter 9

The previous night, Sniper had spent his time dreading the upcoming work day. The BLU Spy was a problem, one he didn't know how to handle. Any attempt to deter him with violence would surely be repaid tenfold, and Sniper couldn't see a single possibility of resolving whatever this was with a civil conversation.

He poured himself a warm cup of coffee, taking a sip of the bitter, sugarless drink. It wasn't a pleasant flavor, but its caffeine would keep him alert while he was sniping–not that hearing the Spy would be much help with how he'd been just walking in lately.

Sniper frowned at his mug. There wasn't much he could do to avoid him, was there?

He locked his camper and walked to the base, lingering in the kitchen with his coffee to avoid his teammates–they'd probably immediately know something was on his mind, even with how little he talked in the mornings. Spy would know just by looking at him, and the last person he wanted to interact with was someone in a mask and suit. That was unfair–RED Spy was a completely different man than his BLU counterpart–but just seeing him reminded Sniper of the enemy Spy and made him tense.

By the time the Administrator's voice announced over the speakers that they had thirty seconds remaining, Sniper had finished his cup of coffee and was energized, despite feeling like crap. He'd contemplated shooting from a different place near the first capture point, but realized how pointless it would be since the BLU Spy knew every inch of the territory. If Sniper wasn't in one spot, he'd be in another. It wouldn't be hard to track him down.

That left him in his usual building as the last five seconds before the match were counted down. Sniper watched the BLUs rush past their now opened gates and engage in fights with his team. He'd hoped to see the Spy and shoot him before he decided to pay him a visit, but the man apparently cloaked before leaving respawn. The only time Sniper saw him was when he stabbed Engineer, but he cloaked again so quickly that Sniper didn't have a chance to get a shot lined up.

Sniper resigned himself to the fact that he would have to confront the Spy soon, no matter how much he didn't want to. But, contrary to his expectations, Sniper woke up in respawn without even seeing him. The backstab had been quick and precise (as they should be), and Sniper struggled to make sense of the Spy's actions, what caused his sporadic lapses in professionalism. He'd never know, so he centered his attention on getting through the battlefield without dying. It was difficult to get past the BLU Soldier, but Demo kept his attention long enough for Sniper to run by and back to the building he'd been shooting from.

He was pleasantly surprised to find the Spy wasn't waiting for him, but he still stood with his back to the wall for twenty seconds to make sure the BLU wasn't just cloaked.

The rest of the morning somehow passed without incident, aside from the BLU Scout shooting him and the Demoman blowing him to bloody chunks and dismembered limbs. At this point, Sniper was hoping that maybe the Spy had decided to stop bothering him, though he knew the chances of that were unlikely. Knowing the Spy would have to show eventually put Sniper on edge, he repeatedly checked behind himself and paid close attention to who came near the building's entrance.

When Sniper finally did hear the Spy uncloak, he almost jumped. He turned to see the BLU leaning against the wall, holding his closed knife by his side.

"You look annoyed. What's the matter, didn't appreciate the backstab?" The Spy's tone was taunting.

Sniper (against his better judgement) decided to humor him. It would stall their fight. "Actually, it was better than the other things you've been doin'." He turned back to the window, though kept close attention on the Spy.

"How unfortunate. I was hoping you secretly enjoyed those kills as much as I do."

He could see the Spy smirk and light a cigarette in his peripheral sight. Sniper didn't know if the BLU was genuinely amused or if he'd just thought of a way to kill him, but it simultaneously made him want to put as much distance between them as possible and punch him in the face. He forced himself to keep his composure.

"Of course you would," he responded dryly, not taking his eyes off the battlefield. As much as he was tempted, Sniper didn't take a shot at any of the enemies below, since looking down his scope would prevent him seeing an oncoming attack from the Spy.

The other mercenary was quiet for a moment, he just stood there smoking and watching him. Sniper could feel his stare–the Spy probably noticed he wasn't shooting.

Sniper broke the silence. "What were you so busy with this morning?"

"Aw, you missed me!"

"That ain't what I meant and you know it," Sniper growled.

The Spy snickered, taking a few steps towards him. "Then what _did_ you mean?"

Sniper was positive the Spy knew what he meant, and he didn't like how close he was getting. He took out his kukri, watching the Spy's gaze fall on it and his teasing expression change to something Sniper didn't like; it was too similar to the look he got when the Spy killed him.

He pushed the Spy against the wall before he could act on whatever was going through his head, pressing his kukri to the BLU's throat.

Sniper didn't know what kept him from plunging it through the Spy when he had the chance.

. . .

Spy's heartbeat kicked up a notch at the blade threatening him; a thrill coursed through him at the danger. The fact that the Sniper hadn't killed him immediately did not go unnoticed. He had an urge to antagonize.

"Not much of a conversationalist, are you?"

"I'm not gettin' paid to chitchat, especially with the crazy, backstabbin' enemy," the Sniper responded. "And, if ya couldn't tell, I don't exactly fancy yer company."

"Fine, have it your way," Spy laughed and kicked the Sniper off of him, sending the RED sprawling backwards and his knife clattering to the floor. Spy leapt upon him in an instant, flicking his balisong open. He stabbed it to the hilt in the Sniper's throat unceremoniously, watching amber eyes widen behind tinted shooting glasses.

Blood gurgled in the Sniper's ruined trachea. His hands came up as though to grab the handle of the knife still in Spy's grasp but stopped a few inches away, shakily hovering over it, not daring to touch. Spy grinned, and he couldn't really stop himself–he twisted his knife, feeling as much as hearing the cartilage crunching and breaking against the steel. The Sniper thrashed, a choked yell bubbled up through the blood obstructing his airway, his hands gripped Spy's arms in an useless attempt to move him, as if that would stop the crimson stream flowing from his throat.

Spy pulled his knife from the Sniper and blood gushed freely, spilling down the sides of his neck and pooling on the floor. The man limply released him as blood loss took its effect and Spy stood up, moving into the building's main room where there weren't any windows to be shot through. He lit a cigarette to help quell the giddiness he was experiencing, it would only make him impulsive and reckless, neither of which were beneficial in battle. Part of this he knew was a result of avoiding the Sniper during the beginning of the match, but it had only been a precaution, he didn't want his teammates (or any of the REDs) to think he had a particular fondness for going after the Sniper. Spy didn't need anyone paying attention to their interactions, and he certainly didn't want to become predictable.

Aside from that, Spy was sure he could busy himself with destroying the Engineer's machines for half an hour. The Texan was amusing, and as long as Spy wasn't too irksome, he knew nothing horrible would come out of it. He knew from experience not to be exceedingly persistent; the Engineer had a mean streak, and Spy had been on the receiving end of his wrath enough times to know when to relent.

He could hear two consecutive beeps every few seconds, indicative of an upgraded sentry. It was practically an invitation. Spy grabbed his sapper and ran down the stairs, cloaking before he left the building.

The sentry hadn't been moved from where he'd last seen it, and, beside the gun, the Engineer clanged away at his dispenser as the Demoman healed a nasty looking wound while drinking his bottle of Scrumpy. Spy uncloaked and set his sapper on the sentry, quickly slipping behind the Demoman and stabbing him.

"Dammit!" the Engineer cursed, momentarily caught between pulling his rifle on Spy and rescuing his machine.

Spy knew the Engineer wouldn't turn his back on him, so he cloaked, feigning to the right and doubling back once he was fully invisible. Spy watched the RED look around, then whack the sapper off his sentry. He turned around immediately after, wrench in hand and prepared to use it. His expression was nearly impossible to read, with his goggles shielding his eyes and hardhat covering his brows, but Spy could tell the man wasn't convinced he'd left. Spy drew his revolver, knowing his cloak was just about spent.

When it did expose him, Spy shot the sentry a few times before running off, headed for the nearest cover. The Engineer took a couple strides after him and sent one bullet whizzing past his head, but didn't pursue much further.

Spy returned of course, succeeding in destroying the dispenser, it's replacement, and then the sentry. He'd stabbed the Engineer too, who had been noticeably riled up, and would certainly be out for revenge when he respawned. Spy would keep his distance for a while.

He was aware the RED Sniper had respawned nearly twenty minutes ago. Spy had become aware of this upon hearing the first shot fire from the sniper rifle and he'd ignored it because he was occupied, and the longer he kept himself from running to the Sniper at the first sign of his presence, the more control Spy felt he had over his impulses. But now he couldn't ignore the Sniper without it being obvious. The sharpshooter was impeding BLU's progress in pushing the cart. Part of Spy's job was to counter the Sniper; his team relied on him doing this. So killing him was merely a logical course of action taken to prevent RED having an advantage, not Spy's inability to control himself.

It wasn't an excuse, Spy just liked to reaffirm it.

Though it would've seemed even less like an excuse if he had killed the Sniper once he reached him. Of course he didn't. That would've been routine. Spy didn't like routine. He was promptly reminded of how much he disliked it when he saw the Sniper. But then his chest tightened, and electricity was suddenly racing under his skin. The feelings twisted into something foreign coiled in his gut; it pulled hungrily at his being.

That was a kind of new he didn't prefer. Maybe he _should_ backstab the Sniper, if it'd make this feeling stop. He almost went through with it; Spy was about to raise his knife when he decided against it, purely because if he did, he wouldn't get the chance to talk with the Sniper for another ten or fifteen minutes–if it could be considered talking. What minimal conversations they had consisted primarily of taunting and arguing, but was amusing for him, at least. He didn't know what they would talk about if they weren't fighting, and he thought he'd prefer that better. It would be abnormal if they weren't jabbing at each other–physically or metaphorically.

What else was there to do, anyway?

Evanescent thoughts inundated his mind that would never matter, that Spy would never let amount to anything. They barely registered in his brain before being shot down. It was then that he noticed how long he'd been paused behind the marksman. Spy was so close, he could reach out and touch the Sniper if he wanted. The man didn't even know.

The Sniper fired his rifle. Spy flinched at the loud, sudden crack it made.

He hesitated again, now unsure about instigating a conversation with the Sniper. (At the moment, he would rather avoid the Sniper altogether.) Though Spy was certain it wasn't evident from his expression, he was still apprehensive to interact with the RED in case he did notice something was off. But nothing was really wrong, it wasn't something Spy couldn't push away and forget.

The Sniper set his gun down, taking a moment to stretch stiffness from his muscles.

It was an opportunity. Spy raised his knife, and it was at that exact moment the Sniper chose to glance behind himself. Spy groaned inwardly. The Sniper whirled around, roughly grabbing ahold of him and shoving him against the wall, and Spy let him, though he knew he shouldn't.

"What the hell was that?" the RED demanded.

Spy was temporarily confused, before realizing the Sniper must be talking about his last death. Until his employment here, Spy'd never really had to face the consequences of his actions; no one was ever able to be angry over him killing them because they'd stayed dead (and he'd never been stupid enough to get caught for murder). Really, Spy didn't see what the fuss was about. The Sniper died at least ten times each day, what use was there getting upset over it? He laughed a little to hide his lack of understanding–not realizing how that might come off–reaching for his balisong so he'd be prepared when the Sniper made a move.

The Sniper saw the action, and pinned Spy's hand to his side. "You're actually insane, ya know that?"

That word was used a bit liberally, Spy thought. He'd use insane to describe Pyro, or maybe Soldier. "No, I don't know that." Spy saw the Sniper's eyes narrow slightly at the response. He was obviously livid; Spy was suddenly very conscious of their proximity. He twisted in the Sniper's grip in an effort to get the mercenary's hands off him.

Instead of tightening his grasp, the Sniper shoved Spy away. Spy hadn't been expecting that, and his shoulder knocked into the wall uncomfortably. He quickly drew his knife, feeling more confident with his weapon at the ready. That confidence turned into disgust when he saw what the Sniper was reaching for.

Spy sneered, "Don't fight dirty."

"That's rich, comin' from you."

That took Spy aback, but only for a second. He evaded the swing of the Sniper's kukri and responded to it with his own attack, slashing at the Sniper's torso so that he jumped back to avoid it.

The Sniper didn't look pleased to be doing this, Spy noticed. But it was entirely his fault; if he hadn't turned around they wouldn't be fighting. A minute ago, Spy hadn't wanted to do this either, but now he was buzzing with anticipation. There wasn't anything special about this–it was another pointless fight in an even more pointless war–but he liked it nonetheless.

Inevitably, not all these fights turned out in Spy's favor. The Sniper didn't fuck around–he never did, but this time he was exerting considerable effort to fend Spy off; he struggled to catch the Sniper off guard, failed to exploit gaps in attacks before they closed. It was obvious the Sniper wasn't in the mood to indulge him like he had earlier. So when the kukri hit his ribcage, was forced between bones into soft, vital organs, Spy was irritated, but unsurprised. It hurt horribly, of course–dying all the time didn't make it hurt any less. The metallic taste of blood flooded his mouth, he couldn't breathe, and his arms shook from bracing himself off the floor. He could feel the rapid thrumming of his pulse in the wound, pushing copious amounts of blood out of severed vessels.

Spy looked up in response to a distant-sounding click, black spots dancing in his already blurry vision. He found himself staring up the barrel of the Sniper's rifle just before it fired.

For a few minutes after respawning, Spy loitered in resupply smoking. Perplexing feelings surrounding the Sniper forced themselves to the surface of his thoughts, gory images of future interactions with the RED forming in his mind. He thought maybe the Sniper didn't hate him as much as he let on. Perhaps he enjoyed their private little fights too–it was difficult to imagine why he wouldn't.

An explosion shook the building, and BLU's victory was declared over the loudspeakers. Spy hadn't known they were doing well enough to accomplish pushing completely through third point while he was stuck in respawn, and they had to have won at least an hour earlier than usual. Soldier would have something to say about him not being there for the final push, but Spy really didn't care.

Heat nipped his fingers–he'd absentmindedly stopped smoking and his cigarette had burned down to the filter. He dropped it on the floor and squashed it under his shoe. Spy didn't join in on his team's victory round. He walked back to base, tentatively wondering what the Sniper did with his time between battles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i haven't seen any new sniperspy fanart in a while and i'm craving it  
> tbh i'm lacking sniperspy content in general :((  
> help
> 
> also, i just realized i've loved this ship for a little over a year now, but have never actually talked to anyone about them  
> where my people at??


	10. Chapter 10

Another sunny morning illuminated Swiftwater, and all the bloodshed taking place. The cart was abandoned behind the first capture point, forgotten for the moment while BLU were caught up in scattered fights. Spy was obligated to be involved in the typical chaos, the usual struggle between both teams.

The fresh coat of blood on his knife belonged to the RED Soldier; Spy had killed him when he'd turned to fire rockets at Heavy. He was searching for a new target now, someone else who was too absorbed in what they were doing to be thinking about him.

Glass shattered a few feet from where he was cloaked. Spy looked over and saw the Demoman pointing at Soldier and yelling indiscernible nonsense. If he'd been intending to hit Soldier with the Scrumpy bottle he was clearly too drunk to aim properly.

Spy could've sauntered behind the Demoman easily and severed his spinal cord, but he didn't intervene; he preferred letting his teammates deal with their own fights. He darted behind a building for cover while he allowed his Invis Watch to fully recharge, listening for possible REDs coming close. There was mold growing on the building; Spy idly scraped a line of it off the wood with his shoe.

He cloaked once his watch was charged, running through the open section of land between structures and into the building the Sniper favored shooting from. Spy hadn't gone there with the intent to kill the RED–though it would be untruthful if he claimed to not have been thinking about him–it was just a good vantage point that shielded him from plain sight. He had a clear view of the capture point and its surrounding area, and of enemies to choose from.

The Engineer was setting up a sentry near the tree. Spy decided to stop him before it was functional, which really didn't take very long. It went to plan, exactly how he'd envisioned it; he'd sapped the sentry then stabbed the Engineer and it'd taken such a short, insignificant amount of time that Spy detested it.

It wasn't surprising when he felt himself wanting to instigate conflict with the Sniper again. Spy figured it wouldn't hurt–they'd been fighting for almost an hour and he'd adeptly done what was expected of him. He skirted the capture point where most of the fighting was taking place, crossing the cart tracks and using the back entrance to the Sniper's current setup.

He was halfway up the stairs when two shots rang out loudly ahead of him. Spy cautiously climbed the remaining steps and nearly collided with Scout, who was rushing out of the building. He uncloaked, and Scout let out a startled shout, accidentally firing his gun.

Scout wasted no time giving him a piece of his mind, "You almost gave me a heart attack, asshole! Jeez, I thought you were the enemy Spy or something."

Spy couldn't keep the annoyance out of his voice. "I could've handled that."

"What–oh. Well, you weren't fast enough." Scout brushed past him and ran off back to the cart. Spy stared after him, futilely trying to eradicate the frustration snarling at him to do something about what'd just occurred to ensure it'd never happen again. It was ridiculous and illogical–the Sniper would be killed by other members of BLU multiple times a day, it was an unavoidable aspect of this war. He couldn't do anything about it, so not only was his frustration unwanted but also pointless.

Regardless of its irrationality, it was a hard feeling to extinguish. That seemed to be a reoccurring issue when it came to the Sniper; undesired feelings. Spy told himself it didn't matter. He distracted himself by defending the cart, and eventually his main thoughts were of calculating the enemy's next movements, where he could slip by safely to dispatch them.

It was an impermanent solution, like putting tape over a leak. The adhesive lost its stick, the edges curled, and thoughts of the Sniper trickled past. Only now, Spy wasn't thinking about blocking them out. His frame of mind gravitated toward wants and impetuous urges. It happened a lot; he'd get wrapped up in desires and forget himself in his eagerness. As of late, the Sniper was the catalyst. There wasn't a good reason why, but Spy had never been prone to evaluating his motives thoroughly.

An impossible wanting pulled at his being and threatened to consume the entirety of his thoughts.

. . .

Sniper fired a bullet into the BLU Demoman's skull. The Medic jumped back from the splatter of bone fragments and brain matter, and Sniper started lining up a shot on him next, but the doctor fired his crossbow in Sniper's direction and fled to resupply. Sniper grumbled under his breath. Killing the Medic would've been beneficial for RED, and they surely needed the advantage after getting dominated yesterday, but he set his sights elsewhere.

The Scout and the Heavy currently pushing the cart were the next best targets. Sniper headshot the Heavy, even though he'd wanted to pay the Scout back for his death earlier. If he'd shot the runner instead, the Heavy would've sent a multitude of bullets flying his way that could penetrate the building's thin, wooden walls. Sniper could imagine just how well that would've turned out for him.

He retreated from the window, waiting for the Scout to disregard or try to shoot him again.

When nothing happened, he peered out from behind the wall. The Scout had left the payload to fight with his counterpart; Sniper could hear shouted insults as they swung at each other with their bats.

Footsteps thumped on the ground floor at the bottom of the stairs. He'd suspected that someone would come after him–killing two BLUs in a short amount of time wasn't something that went unnoticed. Whoever was coming up the stairs was making no effort to step lightly, which thankfully eliminated the possibility of it being the BLU Spy (who he'd been trying his best not to think about). But the Engineer was the last person Sniper thought would try to deal with him. They hardly ever interacted, as the shorter was more concerned with dispensers, teleporters, and sentries. BLU must be getting desperate.

Sniper rushed to the right, barely getting out of the way before the Engineer fired his shotgun. The texan was not suited for close combat, neither was he experienced in it. Sniper swung his kukri into the BLU's neck, feeling the blade slow upon hitting vertebrae. He pushed the Engineer's gun away from himself and twisted it out of the other man's hands just incase he tried to shoot again, even though blood was spurting from his neck and his legs were giving out under him.

The Engineer bled out on the floor; Sniper resumed his work. He heard the BLUs reach the first checkpoint just as he returned to the window. It'd been the Soldier who pushed the payload the last few inches. Scout ran over to prevent him from pushing it farther, shooting and jumping out of a rocket's path. He proved to be too quick and unpredictable for his opponent.

Scout's small victory shifted Sniper's interest to other enemies. It was evident by the lack of them that BLU was struggling, a sharp contrast to how well they had done last battle.

He scoped in on the Medic, adjusting his aim marginally so the German's head was in the center of the crosshairs.

A floorboard creaked behind him. Sniper knew it was intentional; the Spy was aware that board was warped. Sniper forced his tense muscles to relax. Maybe if he pretended he didn't know the Spy was there he would just backstab him and they wouldn't have to-

"I know you heard me." The Spy walked over and rested his arms on Sniper's shoulders, leaning against his back.

The contact shocked him. Sniper recoiled, practically dropping his rifle on the floor in his haste to push the Spy away. "Get the hell off me!"

The Spy let out a small laugh, looking more excited than amused. Sniper still hadn't gotten over yesterday's incident; he felt a certain loathing stir in his insides.

"Who were you aiming for this time? Pyro? Medic?" The question was between a taunt and a tease; the Spy knew he'd interrupted Sniper's shot.

"'Doesn't matter." He wasn't going to entertain another unnecessary exchange that ultimately led to him waking up in respawn. Sniper raised his gun to shoot the Spy, but the BLU slid to the side and grabbed the barrel of the rifle, pointing it up away from himself.

"You always shoot people, doesn't it get boring?" the Spy inquired, starting to pull the firearm from Sniper's hands.

He tightened his grip on his gun. "No, 'cause I don't look for fun in killing."

The Spy tried to wrestle the rifle from his grip, and when he wouldn't let it go he slashed his knife into the back of Sniper's hand. He swore, releasing the gun and yanking his hand away.

"Fine! Bloody take it! What are ya gonna do, shoot me?" He realized after the angry outburst that it might've been a bad idea to give the Spy.

"If I'd wanted to, I would've used my own," the Spy responded. He flung the gun towards the stairs; it clattered onto the top step.

Sniper briefly thought about lunging for it, but knew he wouldn't get past the Spy without a knife three inches deep in his gut. The Spy was already closer than Sniper wanted him to be. He slashed his kukri at the BLU before the knife really was embedded in his flesh, causing the Spy to stumble back. It gave him enough room to run for his gun, and he almost got to it, but the Spy kicked him in the back of the knee hard enough that his leg buckled and knocked him off balance. The Spy's shoulder bashed into his own before he recovered, and Sniper fell on his ass.

In the next instant, the Spy had stabbed his knife through Sniper's shoulder, right next to the bone, and pain scorched through his nerves. The force of the stab landed him flat on his back. He barked out a curse, then another, hands involuntarily flying up to keep distance between the Spy and himself. His shoulder protested at the usage of its muscles and he swore again, letting that arm go limp to minimize the pain.

"Gotcha!" The Spy grinned down at him, eyes alight with wild exhilaration and some crazy hue of affection Sniper was not familiar with.

He brought a knee up in an attempt to push the Spy off him, but the action moved his shoulder and it felt like every pain receptor there _screamed_. Sniper sucked in a sharp breath through grit teeth, barely stifling a yell. The feeling was almost overwhelming, it sent hot flashes through his body–he wanted the Spy off him, touch was nearly panic-inducing when he was in such pain.

"Jesus–fuck!" Sniper spat, unable to contain himself once he opened his mouth. He tried again, "Get away!"

"No," the BLU responded, lightly tracing the handle of the knife with his index finger.

Sniper tried to jostle the Spy off again, which was futile and only caused more pain to shoot through his wound. He was on the floor, there was no way he'd be able to get up fast enough, not to mention how much movement like that would hurt his shoulder.

A lightbulb suddenly went off in his head. His kukri–he'd dropped it when he fell. It couldn't be far; Sniper slowly reached over, feeling around for the weapon but trying not to make it obvious. The cut on his hand stung when he outstretched his fingers and he clenched his jaw, quietly ignoring the discomfort.

The Spy saw what he was doing immediately–Sniper had sort of known he would–and grabbed the knife, flashing a smirk.

"Nice try," the Spy teased. He dangled the kukri between two fingers, as if tempting him to try to take it.

"Piss off," Sniper growled, hand balling into a fist. He'd punch the Spy if it wouldn't jolt his injury.

His enemy snickered and put the kukri down behind himself, out of Sniper's reach. "Hmm, I suppose I should kill you now." The Spy's fingers curled around the handles of the butterfly knife and Sniper couldn't hold in a pained shout.

"Fuck! Don't-"

The Spy yanked the knife out of his shoulder in one fluid motion. Sniper gaped. His entire chest tightened in pain, he couldn't speak, and for a moment couldn't even breathe. He got his hands under himself despite the burning agony in his shoulder and scrambled back from the Spy. Sniper kicked him in the ribcage to put more distance between them. The BLU regarded him blankly for a moment, then shrugged, drew his revolver, and pulled the trigger.

. . .

Sniper opened his eyes to the respawn room. He rolled his shoulder tentatively, knowing it was impossible for it to still hurt but irrationally wanting to be sure. Anger simmered in his chest. He hated how the Spy toyed with him, how he acted like Sniper was incapable of doing the same to him. He didn't want to, though; he wouldn't stoop to that level, and beyond that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. The Spy could be as horrible as he wanted because technically he wasn't infracting his contract.

It was only the beginning of the battle, too; BLU had only captured the first point what seemed like twenty minutes ago. Sniper would inevitably be forced to confront the Spy again, who would come right back and act like everything was fine, like he hadn't done anything wrong. Sniper couldn't stand that.

He armed himself with his knife and left respawn, daring the Spy to come after him. Sniper set up in his usual spot outside the mine and took his anger out on unsuspecting BLUs. He calmed down after a while, even managed to headshot the Spy once. His thoughts kept reeling back to him, to his annoyance, but for obvious reasons. The Spy was an enigma that was maybe better unsolved; Sniper probably didn't need to know what went through his head that made him act the way he did, if it'd only further unsettle him.

Another bullet hit its target. Sniper watched the Heavy collapse and the Medic jump back in his typical startled fashion.

He couldn't be more ready for the weekend.


End file.
